Judge orders Trump DOJ to hand over its list of 20,000 California voters it calls noncitizens
An immigrant rights group gets the first outside look at the disputed list, four days before the election.
A federal judge in Washington on Friday ordered the Trump Justice Department to hand an immigrant rights group its list of about 20,000 California registrants the department claims may not be U.S. citizens. It is the first time anyone outside the government gets to check the list, the Associated Press reported, four days before the Nov. 3 election.
Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled from the bench in a lawsuit the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and California voter Pedro Trujillo filed against the Department of Homeland Security. The department had until 5 p.m. Eastern on Friday to give the names to the plaintiffs' lawyers, the San Francisco Chronicle and the UCLA Voting Rights Project, which represents them, reported. The order bars those lawyers from sharing personal details from the list, the Chronicle reported.
The plaintiffs want to see whether eligible voters, including CHIRLA members, were wrongly flagged. They argue that federal database matching risks catching naturalized citizens.
"They are going to say, 'Here are a bunch of names that shouldn't be on this list,'" Boasberg told the government's lawyers, according to the Chronicle. "And you can say, 'You're wrong, these people should be on the list.'"
Justice Department lawyer Ty Trejo called the plaintiffs' concerns "pure speculation and fearmongering" and said he was confident in the California list, the Chronicle reported. He also acknowledged that some people on it share the same names and birthdays. The 20,000 figure remains the department's claim. California calls the list highly unreliable, and the state told a federal court that about 1 in 4 people on it were born in the United States.
The same list is at the center of a separate case. Earlier Friday, a Ninth Circuit panel refused the department's request to make California set aside those voters' ballots.
"Citizens should not have to file a lawsuit to find out," Chad Dunn, legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, said in the group's statement.
Still unknown: whether the department turned the list over by the deadline, and whether it will appeal. The court asked for more briefing on the plaintiffs' standing once the list is disclosed, the Voting Rights Project said.
California voters can check their ballot's status at Where's My Ballot?
Sources
- Appeals court rejects Justice Department request for California to set aside disputed ballots (Associated Press, via WPXI)
- Judge orders DOJ to hand over list of 20K alleged noncitizen voters to immigrant rights group (San Francisco Chronicle, via Yahoo News)
- Federal Judge Orders DOJ to Turn Over List of More Than 20,000 Alleged Noncitizen Voters to CHIRLA and UCLA Voting Rights Project Legal Teams (UCLA Voting Rights Project, plaintiffs' counsel)
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