Immigrant rights group sues Trump over voter checks targeting citizens

An immigrant rights group has sued the Trump administration over DHS checks of voter rolls. The case argues flawed federal data could intimidate and wrongly target naturalised citizens before the midterms.

In Short

• Case alleges flawed federal records could wrongly flag eligible naturalised voters
• UCLA Voting Rights Project filed the suit in Washington district court
• DHS says it cross-checked voter rolls with databases of known illegal aliens

An immigrant rights group has sued the Trump administration, seeking to stop the US Department of Homeland Security from using federal databases that it says are being used to target naturalised citizens who are eligible to vote. The lawsuit alleges that DHS and the US Justice Department are interfering with fair elections by relying on inaccurate federal records to support claims of voter fraud.

The case was filed in the US District Court in Washington on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights by the UCLA Voting Rights Project. It comes amid a wider set of legal challenges by states, including California, against federal actions that they say could create confusion before the midterm elections.

Speaking at a news conference in downtown Los Angeles, the coalition's executive director Angelica Salas said the federal government was carrying out an "attack on the freedom to vote". "This is voter intimidation," she said. Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for California governor who is acting as a senior adviser to the voting project, said: "It's not an accident the federal government is trying to interfere with the right to vote. ... They believe they can intimidate naturalised US citizens."

The lawsuit says the administration may be comparing voter rolls with undisclosed government databases that can contain outdated and incorrect information, producing inaccurate results that disproportionately affect naturalised voters. "Comparing government databases to try and arrive at a list of noncitizen registrants has been shown to result in erroneous data," the lawsuit said. "Congress has never authorised such activities and in fact has ... prohibited invasion of voter privacy through government data matches in this way."

The Trump administration has been focusing on noncitizen voting, alleging it could be a significant source of fraud during the midterm elections, though actual voting by people who are not citizens is rare. Trump is pushing for the US Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters verified as US citizens, and his Justice Department has sued to force the release of detailed voter data in 30 states and the District of Columbia, though it has not succeeded in those cases so far.

Responding to the lawsuit, a DHS spokesperson said in an email: "The department accessed publicly available data from states' voter rolls and cross referenced them with known illegal aliens in our systems. It's not rocket science; it's an easy step to secure our elections." The spokesperson added: "DHS is laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of US citizens."

In June, a federal judge ruled that a recently revamped version of a federal tool could no longer be used after critics described it as an unlawful centralised federal database of voter information. US District Court Judge Sparkle L Sooknanan sided with advocacy groups that argued the recent upgrades to the programme, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, brought together sensitive personal data in a way that could lead to voters being wrongly removed from voter rolls.

The new lawsuit says it is not clear whether the administration used SAVE to produce estimates about noncitizens on voting rolls in the states, or whether other unknown datasets were used. By May, the administration had run millions of voter registrations through government databases to check eligibility, a process critics feared could lead to valid voters being removed before the November elections. At least 67 million registrations, mainly from Republican-controlled states, have gone through an expanded verification programme, or SAVE, at DHS, and tens of thousands have been flagged as possible noncitizens or people who have died.

The immigrant rights group's lawsuit asks the court to stop the administration from reviewing California's voter list, to rescind the letter sent to the state seeking voter information, and to declare the administration's actions unconstitutional. DHS has claimed, without providing evidence, that 250,000 noncitizens could be on the rolls in four states, including 190,832 in California. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said: "I have serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims, since my office has not shared our statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official." According to the lawsuit, federal officials have not disclosed evidence to support those figures.

The case centres on whether federal agencies can use government databases to examine voter rolls and whether that process risks wrongly targeting naturalised citizens. The lawsuit seeks to halt the administration's California review and challenges the wider use of such data matches in the run-up to the midterm elections.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends