An immigrant rights group is suing the Trump administration over what it says is an effort to use federal databases to identify alleged noncitizen voters, warning the process could wrongly flag naturalized U.S. citizens and lead to eligible voters being removed from rolls ahead of the November midterms. The lawsuit comes as Black civil rights leaders warn about broader voting restrictions and organizers continue efforts to defend voting rights amid federal election changes.
The Associated Press reported that the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights filed the case Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., with support from the UCLA Voting Rights Project. The lawsuit names the Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Attorney General Todd Blanche as defendants.
The complaint accuses federal officials of interfering with fair elections through database matching that may rely on outdated or incomplete citizenship information. Plaintiffs argue those matches can produce false positives, particularly for people who became U.S. citizens after earlier interactions with federal agencies.
The naturalized voter lawsuit asks the court to stop the administration from reviewing California’s voter list, rescind a federal letter requesting voter information and declare the effort unconstitutional.
DHS has claimed that more than 250,000 noncitizens may be registered to vote in four states, including 190,832 in California. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has questioned the reliability of those numbers, saying her office did not provide its statewide voter registration list to DHS.
A DHS spokesperson said the department cross-referenced publicly available voter-roll data with records of people it considers undocumented immigrants and said the effort was intended to protect elections. Federal officials have not publicly disclosed evidence supporting the California figure, according to the lawsuit.
The dispute comes after a federal judge in June blocked use of a recently revamped version of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as SAVE, after advocacy groups argued it aggregated sensitive personal data in ways that could wrongly remove eligible voters.
AP reported that by May, at least 67 million voter registrations, mostly from Republican-controlled states, had been run through the expanded SAVE system. Tens of thousands were flagged as possible noncitizens or deceased voters.
The lawsuit arrives less than two months before the Nov. 3 midterms, adding yet another court fight over who controls voter verification and how federal agencies can use citizenship data in elections.
