UCLA Project, Immigrant Rights Group Sues Trump Administration Over 'Threat' To Voters

LOS ANGELES, CA — The UCLA Voting Rights Project and others are suing the Trump administration, alleging the government's use of federal databases to erroneously target naturalized citizens who are eligible to register to vote interferes with free and fair elections, according to court papers obtained Thursday.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs' case argues that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are interfering with the election process "by using unlawful and inaccurate federal databases to bolster accusations of voter fraud and overreach in election administration," according to the complaint.

The suit follows claims by the White House that more than 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote nationwide, including 190,832 in California. According to the lawsuit, federal officials have not disclosed the methodology or evidence supporting those figures.

A DHS spokesperson said the department's process was fair.

"The department accessed publicly available data from states' voter rolls and cross-referenced them with known illegal aliens in our systems," according to the spokesperson. "It's not rocket science; it's an easy step to secure our elections."

DHS stated it is "laser-focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens. Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: We will find you, arrest you and you will face the consequences — including criminal charges and deportation."

A message seeking comment sent to the White House was not immediately answered.

The lawsuit argues that DHS's own communications have contradicted such claims. After the agency alleged that nearly 16,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in Nevada, a department official reportedly acknowledged that the figure represented a "ceiling" and that each voter would need to be manually reviewed. DHS subsequently provided Nevada officials with 185 identification numbers associated with voters, the agency stated it was confident were noncitizens.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the UCLA Voting Rights Project, joined by gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, and Pedro Trujillo, a naturalized U.S. citizen and registered California voter who lives in Los Angeles and is director of organizing at CHIRLA.

"Naturalized citizens, like my mother, are not second-class citizens," Becerra, voting rights attorney and senior advisor for the VRP and co-counsel in the case, said in a statement. "They have the right to exercise their vote just like all citizens. The Trump administration's attacks on voting are premeditated, and their schemes to interfere in our November third elections are predictable. Today, we file this action against Donald Trump to defend voters like my mom who believe in free and fair elections."

The lawsuit alleges that the administration may be comparing voter rolls with undisclosed government databases. Because those systems may not reflect when a lawful permanent resident later becomes a U.S. citizen, the complaint argues that database-matching could produce false results that disproportionately affect naturalized voters.

Several states are now poised to lose federal funding if they refuse to match their voter rolls against a system the complaint says is notorious for mislabeling valid voters as noncitizens. The federal officials have also threatened election officials with prosecution if they knowingly retain noncitizens on their voter rolls.

City News Service