Immigrants seeking US citizenship targeted in Trump administration\u2019s illegal voting crackdown<\/a><\/p>\nThe DOJ appealed to a federal appeals court Thursday, even though U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has not yet ruled on the emergency request to block the counting of thousands of suspected non-citizen vote-by-mail ballots.<\/p>\n
![\"Bill](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/AP25323626786364.jpg\")
Bill Essayli, acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, speaks with reporters during a news conference at the Department of Justice, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n
The pre-emptive strike was filed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after the judge failed to meet a deadline the department had requested for a ruling. Federal prosecutors said in the filing that Carter\u2019s apparent unwillingness to meet the deadline amounts to a \u201cconstructive denial\u201d of the DOJ\u2019s request for preliminary relief.<\/p>\n
In opposition to the DOJ\u2019s 11th-hour attempt to have election officials set aside the allegedly suspect ballots, defendants Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder\/County Clerk Dean Logan contend they lack both the mechanisms and the legal authority to freeze mail ballots in the November election until the voters\u2019 citizenship can be verified.<\/p>\n
Any alleged evidence suggesting that tens of thousands of people in Los Angeles County are unlawfully registered to vote is entirely \u201cunreliable,\u201d according to the county\u2019s opposition to the TRO request.<\/p>\n
\u201cVoting is already underway in Los Angeles County,\u201d according to the motion. \u201cBallots have been mailed, returned and processed, and election officials are working toward fixed deadlines for counting and certification. Plaintiff United States of America, through the Department of Justice \u2026 now asks this court to interrupt that work and enjoin the withholding of 20,000 registered California voters\u2019 ballots pending investigation based solely on an unreliable voter roll maintenance list.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Weber\u2019s office, federal officials claimed in July that California had 190,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls, but when her office asked for proof of their claims, \u201cThey refused and provided California with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has long asserted that large numbers of non-citizens were casting ballots in California and elsewhere, although officials have never provided any proof or documentation of such sweeping fraud.<\/p>\n
Monica Flores, an official in the registrar\u2019s office, wrote in an affidavit that the registrar \u201chas no authority under state or federal law to withhold or set aside the ballot of a registered voter on the basis of a third party\u2019s assertion that the voter may not be a citizen, has no information beyond the voter\u2019s own attestation with which to determine citizenship, and has no lawful means of obtaining such information.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition \u2026 a substantial part of what the DOJ requests is no longer physically possible, and the remaindedonald trumpr could not be carried out without placing the timely and accurate administration and certification of the General Election at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its request for an immediate ruling on the TRO request, federal prosecutors wrote that time was of the essence.<\/p>\n
As the defendants \u201ccontinue processing ballots that cannot later be segregated or verified for eligibility, the dilution of lawful votes accelerates in real time,\u201d according to the motion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an emergency,\u201d DOJ lawyers wrote. \u201cEvery minute of processing that occurs without segregating the ballots of suspected non-eligible voters causes untraceable disenfranchisement and dilution of the votes of United States citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By FRED SHUSTER | City News Service A Los Angeles federal court hearing was scheduled for Tuesday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1400,7,9,8,1312,536,204,14,2582,100,13,136,6392],"class_list":["post-505765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-immigration","tag-national-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}