Judge restricts DHS field operations for non-citizen voters: NPR

People vote at a polling place at Metro Los Angeles headquarters during the California state primary, June 2, 2026.

Frédéric J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

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Frédéric J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

A federal judge in California is imposing limits on pre-election field operations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security that the agency says are aimed at trying to track down noncitizens who voted illegally in nine states.

In recent weeks, armed agents from Homeland Security Investigations have conducted field operations and visited homes to interview people suspected of voting illegally as noncitizens. Targets may include people who became citizens but voted before becoming naturalized.

In a 19-page order Wednesday evening, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, appointed by President Joe Biden, wrote that the federal government was using “flawed” data in the initiative and that its efforts likely violated the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voter intimidation.

Martínez-Olguín referenced a disclosure last month from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services whistleblower that alleged rushed efforts to compare data to create a target list of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls, and that that list included U.S. citizens. She also pointed to HSI’s social media posts, including one showing agents handcuffing a Californian accused of illegally registering to vote.

The judge wrote that the government’s use of unreliable and incomplete data as well as high-profile arrests “lead to an objectively reasonable fear of trouble with law enforcement who intimidate citizens and prevent them from inciting or assisting others in exercising their right to vote.”

HSI field operations were planned in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, according to documents produced in the case and CNN reporting.

Martínez-Olguín prohibited DHS agents in those states from conducting field operations targeting individuals who they “know, suspect, or reasonably should know or suspect are U.S. citizens,” or who are based “entirely” on USCIS match data, without further investigation.

In a statement, USCIS official Nicolas Bartell told the judge that his team manually reviews cases before sending them back to HSI, but acknowledged the “remote possibility” that citizens could be “misidentified as potential aliens” in federal records. He wrote that the risks were mitigated by the protective measures his office took “and that the remaining risks were outweighed by the need to support the agency’s mission of law enforcement and election integrity.”