An immigrant rights group has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking to block the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using federal databases that it claims are being utilized to target naturalized citizens eligible to vote. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, asserts that DHS and the U.S. Justice Department are interfering with fair elections by employing inaccurate federal databases in an attempt to bolster claims of voter fraud.
Angelica Salas, the coalition's executive director, stated that the federal government is launching an "attack on the freedom to vote" and called the actions "voter intimidation." The lawsuit, supported by the UCLA Voting Rights Project, is part of broader legal efforts by states, including California, to counter federal actions that could cause confusion during the midterm elections.
Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for California governor and a senior adviser to the voting project, suggested that the federal government's attempts to interfere with voting rights are deliberate, aiming to intimidate naturalized U.S. citizens.
The lawsuit alleges that the administration may be cross-referencing voter rolls with undisclosed government databases. These systems, the suit contends, can contain outdated or erroneous information, potentially leading to inaccurate results that disproportionately impact naturalized voters. The filing states that comparing government databases to identify noncitizen registrants has a history of producing erroneous data and that Congress has not authorized such activities, having previously prohibited invasions of voter privacy through such data matches.
The Trump administration has focused on noncitizen voting, suggesting it could be a significant source of fraud in the midterm elections, despite the rarity of actual noncitizen voting. The administration has also advocated for the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to verified U.S. citizens and has pursued legal action to obtain detailed voter data from 30 states and the District of Columbia, without success to date.
A DHS spokesperson responded to the lawsuit by stating, "The department accessed publicly available data from states’ voter rolls and cross referenced them with known illegal aliens in our systems. It’s not rocket science; it’s an easy step to secure our elections." The spokesperson added that DHS is focused on prosecuting and removing noncitizens who vote and preventing the dilution of votes cast by U.S. citizens.
In June, a federal judge ruled against a revamped federal tool, which critics had described as an unlawful centralized federal database of voter information. U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan agreed with advocacy groups that argued upgrades to the program, known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), aggregated sensitive personal data in a manner that could lead to the wrongful purging of voters from rolls.
The lawsuit does not clarify whether the administration used SAVE to generate its projections of noncitizens on voting rolls or if other undisclosed datasets were involved. By May, the Trump administration had reportedly processed millions of voter registrations through government databases to verify eligibility, a process that critics feared could lead to the purging of valid voters. Tens of thousands of registrations, primarily from Republican-controlled states, had been flagged as potential noncitizens or deceased individuals through the enhanced SAVE program at DHS.
Specifically, the immigrant rights group's lawsuit requests that the court halt the administration's review of California's voter list, rescind the letter sent to the state requesting voter information, and declare the administration's actions unconstitutional. The Department of Homeland Security has claimed, without providing evidence, that approximately 250,000 noncitizens might be registered to vote in four states, with 190,832 in California alone.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber expressed significant doubts about the reliability and accuracy of the federal data, noting that her office had not shared the statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official. The lawsuit also notes that federal officials have not disclosed evidence to support their figures.