Judge Limits Homeland Security Field Operations Aimed at Suspected Noncitizen Voters

A federal judge in California has limited field operations by the Department of Homeland Security that aimed to find noncitizens who illegally voted before the November elections. The New York Times reported on October 21, 2026 that the judge restricted the operations. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a 19-page order.

The judge, an appointee of President Joe Biden, found that the federal government was using "flawed" data. She also found that its efforts likely violated the Voting Rights Act's ban on voter intimidation. The Voting Rights Act is a federal law that governs voting rights.

Armed officers from Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within the department, carried out field operations and home visits in recent weeks. The officers interviewed people suspected of illegally voting as noncitizens, according to NPR.

The operations were planned in nine states: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. The order bars DHS officers in those states from conducting field operations that target people they know, suspect or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens. It also bars operations based wholly on data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) matching, without further investigation.

A USCIS official, Nicolas Bartell, said his team manually reviews records before referring them to HSI. He acknowledged a low possibility that U.S. citizens could be wrongly identified as potential noncitizens, according to NPR.

Noncitizens are not eligible to vote in federal elections, The Washington Post reported. The DHS operations were part of a broader effort to identify noncitizen voters, The New York Times reported.

Federal prosecutors have also stepped up cases against noncitizens accused of voting ahead of the November elections, according to Reuters.