Immigrant Rights Group Sues Trump Over Voter Checks Targeting Citizens

An immigrant rights group has sued the Trump administration over Department of Homeland Security checks of voter rolls, arguing that flawed federal databases could wrongly target naturalised US citizens and intimidate eligible voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Washington on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights by the UCLA Voting Rights Project. It accuses DHS and the US Justice Department of interfering with fair elections by relying on potentially inaccurate federal records to identify alleged noncitizens on voter rolls.

Angelica Salas, the coalition's executive director, called the federal effort an “attack on the freedom to vote” and said, “This is voter intimidation.” Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for California governor and a senior adviser to the voting project, also accused the administration of attempting to intimidate naturalised citizens.

The lawsuit alleges that the administration may be matching voter rolls against undisclosed government databases containing outdated or inaccurate information. Such comparisons, it argues, can produce false results and disproportionately affect naturalised voters.

The Trump administration has made noncitizen voting a major focus of its election efforts, although actual voting by noncitizens is rare. Trump is pushing for the US Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters verified as citizens, while the Justice Department has sued to obtain detailed voter data from 30 states and Washington, DC. Those efforts have so far failed to secure the requested data in court.

DHS defended its actions, saying it accessed publicly available state voter-roll information and cross-referenced it with records of people it identifies as illegal aliens. The department said the effort was intended to protect election integrity and prevent the dilution of US citizens' votes.

The lawsuit follows a June ruling by US District Court Judge Sparkle L Sooknanan that halted use of a revamped Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) tool. Voting-rights groups had argued that the system improperly consolidated sensitive personal information and could result in eligible voters being removed from voter rolls.

By May, the administration had reportedly processed at least 67 million voter registrations through an expanded SAVE verification programme, primarily from Republican-controlled states. Tens of thousands were flagged as potential noncitizens or deceased voters.

The administration has also claimed that 250,000 potential noncitizens could be registered to vote across California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, including 190,832 in California. Federal officials have not publicly provided evidence supporting those figures.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber questioned the accuracy of the claims, saying her office had not shared its statewide voter registration list with DHS or another federal agency.