A federal judge in California ordered Department of Homeland Security officials to halt operations and interviews targeting voter fraud in nine states Wednesday, saying the effort is based on a highly flawed data analysis that has ensnared people whom federal officials “know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens.”
Court declarations by Nicolas Bartell, an official with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which operates within DHS, connect the voter-matching operation criticized in Wednesday’s injunction with a list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizen voters the Trump administration is separately seeking to have reviewed and possibly withheld by the state of California in a lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin stayed her order until Friday at 5 p.m. to allow the government time to appeal in a case that has captured national attention in the waning days of the election. Early voting is well underway, and ballots are being cast between now and Nov. 3.
Court records, along with subpoenas first obtained by inewsource, show how an escalating probe by Homeland Security Investigations — an agency within DHS created after 9/11 that has traditionally focused on preventing terrorism and fighting transnational crime — led to federal prosecutors accessing voting records in San Diego and Imperial counties this summer and filing criminal charges against 28 people this week.
“Anybody who knowingly commits voter fraud should be prosecuted,” Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, told inewsource. “For the sake of argument, let’s say those 28 all had acted improperly. Out of 23 million, it’s certainly the opposite of any sort of evidence of widespread fraud.”
In an interview Wednesday, Levin said, “I think what Trump wants to do is cast doubt on millions of lawful votes by spotlighting isolated allegations of wrongdoing.” He said he thought Trump is trying “ultimately to lay the groundwork to challenge results that he doesn’t like.”
Federal prosecutors said they used subpoenaed voter records from county registrars alongside Homeland Security information to build the cases they announced Monday.
In four situations involving San Diego County voting, HSI agents relied on voter-registration forms and ballot envelopes; three federal complaints explicitly reference records from the San Diego County registrar.
The Imperial County registrar received a summons and a subpoena from HSI agents, records obtained by inewsource show.
At a press conference in Los Angeles on Monday, Kevin Murphy, the HSI special agent in charge of San Diego, thanked all four California U.S attorneys assembled there.
“Their close coordination with HSI has been critical to today’s successful operations,” he said.
At that news conference, Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Trent McCotter pushed back on critics like Levin who say the president is trying to sow doubt in the election, saying, “I don’t see how trying to remove noncitizens from elections would sow doubt. All that ensures is that the votes of citizens count as they should.”
The operation began in March 2025 and, after a slew of lawsuits in other states, culminated with the Trump administration filing a lawsuit against the state of California last week that demanded the state comb through and potentially set aside 20,000 ballots that the federal government alleges belong to noncitizens.
In August, DHS directed HSI to focus on sending agents into the field to question people about voter eligibility in the nine states of California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.
DHS created lists of individuals to target in these field operations by combining a variety of sources, including publicly available information and data from state and local governments.
The judge called the pooled data set “voluminous and unreliable” and said some records from independent sources were of “questionable provenance.”
An HSI internal memo directed agents to document their investigations beyond normal operating procedures so that DHS could use it for “media and reporting.” These appear to have been used by HSI in its many social media posts showing agents knocking on doors and making arrests.
Federal officials then took public or state-supplied voter rolls and used artificial intelligence tools to identify suspected noncitizens, creating a list that had a high likelihood of error and was “widely known to inadvertently include U.S. citizens,” Judge Martínez-Olguín wrote in her ruling.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in court filings that errors in identifying citizenship can result from “similar names, outdated citizenship information, clerical errors and other circumstances.”
There is no comprehensive up-to-date federal database that tracks citizenship.
HSI agents were ordered to complete a minimum of 40 manual reviews in no more than 12 minutes by searching through commercial databases, which the judge found increased the risk of error.
The California Nurses Association, the lead plaintiff in the case, said that its voter mobilization activities made it clear to them that the investigations were intimidating eligible voters — and the judge found “substantial evidence” of “a reasonable fear of harm to those assisting and mobilizing voters.” The judge said the CNA was likely to succeed on a claim the Voting Rights Act had been violated in ruling that the federal operation should stop.
A footnote in the ruling says, “Though the Court makes no findings related to the extent of the threat of voter fraud, it notes that other courts have found that the federal government has failed to establish that significant fraud threatens the reliability of upcoming elections.”
What’s next?
If the government doesn’t appeal successfully, the judge’s order would go into effect after business hours on Friday and stay in place until after polls close on Nov. 3.
California and Los Angeles County officials are asking a federal judge to dismiss the Justice Department lawsuit that could keep thousands of Californians’ ballots from being counted.
The department wants election officials to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 people it identified as “likely noncitizens” until their citizenship can be verified, but California and the county moved to dismiss the case Wednesday, arguing that federal officials lack authority to impose those demands.
The list of 20,000 people was generated using the same methods the judge found faulty in court, according to declarations by federal officials.
Los Angeles County’s preliminary review also raises questions about the list.
Of 200 sampled records with county addresses, 112 had canceled or inactive registrations and had not been sent general-election ballots, according to declarations filed by county election officials.
County officials also warned that verifying citizenship and setting aside ballots could prevent eligible voters’ ballots from being counted before election deadlines.
DOJ attorneys say an immediate court order is necessary because ballots cannot be traced back to voters once opened and processed.
California has declined to give the federal government access to its full unredacted voter rolls or set aside ballots. It provided records on 300 subpoenaed voters.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
