Judge halts DHS field operations targeting suspected noncitizen voters in nine states

A federal judge in California, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in Oakland, ordered the Trump administration to halt investigations in nine states into whether noncitizens are registered to vote, according to AP and The Guardian. CBS News reported that she ordered federal immigration authorities to stop "elections-related field operations and field interviews" if the operations are likely to involve people whom government officials "know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens." The states are California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. [ 3 , 4 , 8 , 10 ]

The ruling was made on Wednesday and put on hold until Friday to give the administration a chance to appeal. CBS News said the stay lasts until 5 p.m. on Friday. The order is to remain in effect until polls close on Election Day, Nov. 3, according to CBS News, ABC News and The Guardian. The Hill quoted the order as running until Election Day at 8 p.m. "or when polling places close." [ 3 , 4 , 8 , 10 ]

CNN reported that the order limits actions DHS takes in the field, such as interviews, and bars them if DHS believes the person targeted could be a U.S. citizen. It quoted the judge as writing that DHS's data alleging hundreds of thousands of possible illegal voters "is widely known to inadvertently include U.S. citizens." The Hill reported that the judge described the target list sources as "voluminous and unreliable" and wrote that there is no federal database containing citizenship status of U.S. residents. It also reported that agents were ordered to take "no more than twelve minutes to eliminate a person from the target list using the commercial databases." [ 1 , 4 ]

CBS News reported that the judge found the policy likely violates a section of the Voting Rights Act that makes it illegal to "intimidate, threaten, or coerce" those who assist people with voting or engage in voter mobilization. The judge also wrote that the plaintiffs do not claim, and the court does not find, that it is unlawful for federal officials to investigate unlawful voting in federal elections. The Guardian reported that, according to legal filings, investigators were told to target naturalized citizens to see whether they had voted before they became U.S. citizens. [ 3 , 4 , 10 ]

The lawsuit was filed by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, along with the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County. Beau Tremitiere, an attorney for Protect Democracy, which represents the groups that brought the case, told CNN the order is "a serious protection" and said operations targeting known naturalized citizens are prohibited. Axios reported that the order also blocks operations against likely citizens that rely on records generated by the government's voter-matching policy. [ 1 , 8 , 10 , 12 ]

The Guardian reported that DHS issued an email statement on Thursday saying it was focused on "removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens" and had "no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens." CBS News said the Trump administration describes the door-knocking as part of an effort to crack down on voting by noncitizens, while critics say it could intimidate legal voters. AP and The Guardian wrote that the administration has signaled noncitizen voting is a widespread problem when in fact it is quite rare, as even its own investigations have shown. [ 3 , 8 , 10 ]