A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to give an immigration advocacy group its list of 20,000 alleged unlawful California voters by Friday evening.
Bloomberg Law reported that Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg issued the order during a hearing in a lawsuit brought by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) and a California voter who are challenging the administration’s efforts to identify alleged illegal voters and send lists to county officials for immediate review.
“If you’re a voter in California you have to wonder if you’re on this list; will you ever be on this list?” said Chad Dunn, legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, who represents the plaintiffs.
Dunn said CHIRLA has received calls from worried citizens who say they won’t vote or who want to know whether they’re on the government’s list.
“It absolutely has a suppressive effect,” he said.
The order is meant to determine whether any of CHIRLA’s members or clients appear on the list. Boasberg barred the plaintiffs from sharing the list beyond their legal team but allowed them to make statements and draw conclusions about whether members appear on it.
Justice Department lawyer Ty Trejo would not commit to whether the government would send more lists of suspected illegal voters.
“You could all sit down and have a nice weekend if you say you won’t send lists,” Boasberg told government attorneys.
Trejo said the federal government has the authority to enforce the law when officials “choose to put their heads in the sand.” He said he believed no new lists would be created, but that the government reserved the right to update existing ones.
“If they have a passport, are naturalized, they are not on the list,” Trejo said.
Earlier this month, the Justice and Homeland Security departments sued California, claiming that more than 20,000 people who are “likely aliens” are registered to vote in the state. This week, another federal judge rejected the Justice Department’s bid to force California to set aside those ballots. On Thursday, the department directed federal prosecutors to pursue grand jury subpoenas of California election officials.
Separate lawsuits in California seek to stop DHS agents from conducting door-to-door investigations of voters.
The case is one of a slew of legal challenges to the administration’s voter-fraud investigations in the final days before Tuesday’s election.
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