Federal judge blocks DHS voter-fraud field sweeps in nine states
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USAA federal judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from carrying out most field operations in its hunt for noncitizen voters across nine states, ruling that the government's target lists were built on faulty data that included U.S. citizens.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California issued the 19-page preliminary injunction on Oct. 21 in California Nurses Association v. Mullin. The order bars DHS agents from field interviews and operations that involve — or are likely to involve — people the agents know or should suspect are U.S. citizens, and operations resting wholly on the department's voter-matching records.
At the center of the case is the program the administration calls the "Unlawful Voter Initiative," launched in August. Under an Aug. 31 "surge" directive, Homeland Security Investigations agents knocked on doors in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin asking residents about their eligibility to vote. The judge wrote that the initial target list data was "voluminous and unreliable," noting the lists appeared to include naturalized citizens.
The case was brought by the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, the Voto Latino Foundation and the city and county of San Francisco and Santa Clara County, who argued the door-knocking campaign intimidated voters and voter-assistance workers. The judge found the nurses' unions likely to prevail on their Voting Rights Act claim.
The order takes effect at 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, giving the administration time to seek emergency relief from an appeals court, and it runs through the Nov. 3 midterm elections unless the court orders otherwise.
Sources: CNN (Oct 21, 2026); The New York Times (Oct 22, 2026).
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