Judge blocks DHS from questioning suspected U.S. citizens in nine-state voter sweep

A federal judge in Oakland, California, has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to stop sending agents to question people it suspects of being ineligible to vote across nine states, ruling that the administration's months-long hunt for noncitizen voters is likely to violate a federal law against voter intimidation. The order takes effect at 5 p.m. Friday — this afternoon — eleven days before the midterm elections.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted a preliminary injunction late Wednesday in California Nurses Association v. Mullin, barring DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from conducting "elections-related field operations and field interviews" in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin wherever agents know, suspect or reasonably should suspect that the person is a U.S. citizen. The order also blocks operations built solely on flagged law-enforcement records against people believed to be citizens. It runs only through Election Day and was stayed for 48 hours to give the government a chance to appeal before it takes hold.

A data-driven "surge" with a built-in error rate

The ruling centers on what DHS calls the Unlawful Voter Initiative, launched in August, and an internal "Surge Initiative Guidance" issued Aug. 31 directing Homeland Security Investigations agents to prioritize field interviews about voter eligibility in the nine states. According to the order, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services built its target lists from roughly 99 million records in total — 48.2 million obtained "through independent sources" that the court said were of "questionable provenance," plus another 50.6 million drawn from official state voter rolls or, where states declined to share data, unreliable commercial substitutes.

Agents were ordered to complete a minimum of 40 "suspected subject reviews" a day, giving them no more than 12 minutes to clear each person using commercial databases before referring the case for a field interview, the order states. Martínez-Olguín wrote that "there is a high likelihood of error in review because there is no federal database containing citizenship status of U.S. residents," and found that the quota system compounded the risk of sweeping up naturalized and natural-born citizens.

Armed agents, social media posts and a whistleblower

The judge's order draws heavily on a whistleblower disclosure that Sens. Chuck Schumer and Alex Padilla released on Sept. 14, which alleged that agents were directed to make false attestations to access state voter-registration websites and that USCIS personnel were pressured to generate law-enforcement records on people they considered unreliable matches, including U.S. citizens. The disclosure also described a quota of five investigations per hour.

Court filings cited in the opinion show DHS components publicizing the campaign on social media, including an X post from the @HSISanFrancisco account showing an armed Homeland Security Investigations officer approaching a home, and footage from @HSI_HQ of an arrest. The order also found that DHS "surveils, covertly infiltrates, and interrogates the staff of non-profits and churches conducting voter engagement," identifying at least 148 such organizations as of July.

"CNA/NNU's and the public's interest in safe elections, free from interference or intimidation, far exceed Defendants' purported interest in combating unlawful voting by non-U.S. citizens," Martínez-Olguín wrote in granting the injunction.

The judge was careful to note the limits of her ruling. "Plaintiffs do not claim, nor does the Court find, that it is unlawful for federal officials to undertake investigations into unlawful voting in federal elections," she wrote, adding that DHS remains free to investigate people it actually believes are noncitizens.

Who brought the case, and how DHS responded

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 18 by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, along with the City and County of San Francisco, Santa Clara County and the Voto Latino Foundation. The judge found the nurses' unions, whose members do voter-outreach work, had shown they were likely to be harmed directly by the intimidation the program created.

DHS has defended the initiative. A department spokesperson said the agency is "laser focused on identifying, prosecuting, and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens" and added that it has "no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens," according to CBS News. The administration's broader claims about noncitizen voting have been disputed by state officials: DHS told Nevada in July that it had identified as many as 16,000 potential noncitizen voters on its rolls, a number federal officials later cut to 185; Nevada's Secretary of State's office said in September that it could confirm none of those 185 were actually noncitizens, the Nevada Independent reported. The Justice Department has separately sued California over roughly 20,000 mail ballots it says were cast by likely noncitizens, a claim Padilla's office said rests on "the same unreliable data" at issue in Wednesday's ruling.

• Nine states covered: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin
• Target-list records reviewed by USCIS: roughly 99 million, including 48.2 million the court called of "questionable provenance"
• Minimum daily review quota for agents: 40 subjects, with up to 12 minutes each to clear a match
• Nonprofits and churches DHS has surveilled over voter-engagement work: at least 148, as of July

What happens next

The injunction is stayed until 5 p.m. Friday, giving the administration a narrow window to seek emergency relief from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit before it takes effect. Absent further court action, it remains in place only until polls close on Election Day, Nov. 3, at 8 p.m. Plaintiffs were required to post a nominal $100 bond, and Martínez-Olguín has scheduled a further hearing in the case for Oct. 27. It was not immediately clear Friday morning whether DHS would appeal.