Judge Blocks DHS Field Investigations Into Suspected Illegal Voting in Nine States, Citing Voter Intimidation

A federal judge in California has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to stop certain field investigations into suspected illegal voting, days before the midterms. Fox News reports the ruling came Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who was nominated by President Biden in 2022 and spent about six years at the ACLU before joining the bench.

What she ruled. The judge said the activist groups suing DHS showed they are likely to succeed on their claim that the department ran afoul of the Voting Rights Act's ban on intimidating voter assistance and mobilization. She wrote that the public's interest in safe elections free from intimidation "far exceed" the government's interest in combating unlawful voting by noncitizens.

What she did not rule. Fox says she did not find that investigating noncitizen voting is unlawful in itself. Her concern was the method: DHS used unreliable source data, she found, and sent armed agents to people's homes for interviews, which could amount to intimidation. Government lawyers conceded that some U.S. citizens may have been looked at, but argued the in-person interviews were "expressly designed to resolve the discrepancies."

The reach. The order covers certain field investigations involving U.S. citizens in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. She delayed enforcement until Friday to give the administration time to appeal, and the restrictions are set to expire on Election Day unless she orders otherwise.

The administration's side. The Trump administration argued that noncitizen voting in federal elections is a crime and that DHS has the authority to investigate it. A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital the department is "laser focused on identifying, prosecuting, and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens," and has "no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens."

Context from Fox. Fox notes that noncitizen voting is rare but documented. It cites New Jersey's earlier mistaken listing of more than 6,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls, and Justice Department charges against 16 people in September, with more election-related charges in October. Fox also says the administration has yet to produce evidence of widespread noncitizen voting.

Note for readers: the "voter intimidation" finding is the judge's preliminary reading, issued at an early stage, and the order can be appealed. We have not read the ruling itself.