Background: A Homeland Security Investigations task force officer stands behind police tape during a federal operation focused on suspected illegal voter registration in Commerce, California, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong). Inset: U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California.
A federal judge has temporarily barred the Trump administration from carrying out immigration-related field interviews in areas where U.S. citizens live, ruling that the government’s voter-fraud investigations have created an objectively reasonable fear of intimidation among people preparing to participate in elections.
In a 19-page ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said the Department of Homeland Security’s promise to focus its investigations on noncitizens did not eliminate the danger that American citizens could be wrongly caught up in the effort and intimidated for exercising their legally protected voting rights.
The judge granted a preliminary injunction sought by voting rights organizations, including the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, collectively known as CNA/NNU.
The dispute began in June, when DHS directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pursue tougher consequences—including deportation—for noncitizens accused of illegally voting in U.S. elections. Two months later, DHS launched its “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” ordering U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to compile lists of people officials suspected of voting while lacking citizenship.
DHS also circulated “Surge Initiative Guidance,” directing Homeland Security Investigations officers to concentrate on California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. The plan relied on a Voter Eligibility Matching Policy for identifying suspected voter fraud and a Field Operations Policy that authorized HSI teams to conduct interviews in the field, among other activities.
In September, a group of U.S. senators released a whistleblower report claiming USCIS personnel had been instructed to improperly access state voter files and generate inaccurate federal law-enforcement records for alleged “unlawful” voters. The report said some people identified in the process were known naturalized citizens. Four days later, CNA/NNU sued DHS in federal court in Northern California, arguing in part that the administration’s actions violated the Voting Rights Act by intimidating voters.
Martínez-Olguín agreed that the organizations had presented a compelling case.
The judge described the data used to create the initiative’s initial target list as extensive but unreliable. She said the information, like the Field Operations Policy itself, included naturalized citizens. Based on substantial evidence submitted by the voting rights groups, she concluded that DHS actions under the voter initiative and enforcement surge were interfering with CNA/NNU members’ efforts to encourage participation in the 2026 midterm elections.
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The ruling also characterized the initiative as flawed at multiple stages. Martínez-Olguín wrote:
By publicizing unreliable data that can wrongly identify citizens, pursuing investigations based on that information and promoting a social media campaign featuring arrests and encounters with armed officers, the government created a credible threat for people helping organize and educate voters. The judge said announcements about armed agents being sent to homes and communities in a militarized operation shortly before the midterms had frightened CNA/NNU members. Some, she found, had already stopped taking part in election-related work because they feared physical, legal or reputational consequences for themselves and their families.
“The fear is objectively reasonable,” the Biden-appointed judge wrote, noting that the concern was intensified by the government’s use of data widely understood to mistakenly include U.S. citizens. As a result, citizens feared their names could be placed among the hundreds of thousands of people selected for investigation.
The Trump administration has maintained that its investigation cannot violate the Voting Rights Act because federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Officials argue that the government is entitled to investigate and prosecute suspected unlawful activity.
Martínez-Olguín rejected the idea that combating voter fraud requires the government to target citizens, send armed officers into communities or create fear among people assisting others with voting. She pointed specifically to the use of acknowledgedly incomplete and inaccurate data to assemble interview lists ahead of the election, as well as a social media campaign showing arrests of people accused of “unlawfully registering to vote in California.”
Taken together, the judge wrote, those measures could reasonably make citizens fear becoming entangled with law enforcement and discourage them from encouraging or helping others exercise their right to vote.
The preliminary injunction prevents the administration from carrying out the disputed field operations in the nine states and from using information compiled under the Voter Eligibility Matching Policy to target U.S. citizens. The order remains in force through Nov. 3.
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