Voting and Civil Rights Groups File Lawsuit to Stop Unlawful Federal Intimidation of Naturalized Citizen Voters

A coalition of civil rights groups today filed a federal lawsuit to stop an unlawful and discriminatory program by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that systematically targets, investigates, and intimidates naturalized U.S. citizens.

The lawsuit was filed by OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, OCA-San Mateo, OCA-Sacramento, Common Cause, ACLU of Northern California, ACLU of Southern California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL), represented by the ACLU Voting Rights Project.

Since August 2026, USCIS has run what it calls an “Unlawful Voter Initiative” aimed at tracking and investigating foreign-born citizens under the guise of voter eligibility checks. As part of this initiative, federal agents rely on outdated, error-prone data and questionable methods — including posing as individual voters to search private voter registration records on state election websites. As a result, thousands of fully naturalized American citizens are subjected to improper investigations, door-to-door interrogations, and potential disenfranchisement based on flawed government data.

The lawsuit aims to immediately stop the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from continuing the Unlawful Voter Initiative. It also seeks to block the federal government from pressuring state election officials to withhold or discard valid ballots cast by individuals appearing on DHS’s unreliable lists. Additionally, the legal action demands a formal declaratory judgment establishing that the initiative violates the Civil Rights Act’s Uniform Standards Provision, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

“Our communities have spent generations fighting to overcome barriers to the ballot box, and we cannot allow government intimidation to become another obstacle,” said Thu Nguyen, executive director of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates. “Instead of helping voters participate in our elections, federal agencies are using flawed information to investigate and intimidate the very people they are supposed to serve. These actions threaten to undermine years of progress in building trust and encouraging civic participation in immigrant communities. We cannot allow fear to keep people from exercising their right to vote.”

“This administration knows its data is flawed and unreliable, but they’re using it anyway to scare eligible voters away from the polls. It’s a deliberate effort to spread unfounded lies and make people doubt our elections,” said Virginia Kase Solomon, president and CEO of Common Cause. “When even one voter is targeted, all of us are at risk. Common Cause will keep fighting in the courtroom and in our communities to make sure every single eligible voter can cast their ballot without fear of government harassment.”

“The Trump administration is challenging voters and threatening states based off flawed and outdated data,” said Theresa J. Lee, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “These allegations are putting eligible voters — including naturalized U.S. citizens — at risk of disenfranchisement. The administration can’t keep creating political stunts to sow distrust in our elections and lay the groundwork to question results they don’t like. We’re challenging both these unlawful actions and the unreliable data behind them, and we will fight to ensure that no eligible voter is targeted or silenced because of it.”

“Naturalized citizens are U.S. citizens, with exactly the same right to vote as anyone born here,” said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC. “The ‘Unlawful Voter Initiative’ was never designed to confirm citizenship, and election officials have found it erroneously flagging eligible voters. Purging or investigating voters based on their system errors punishes citizens for the government’s own mistakes. Asian American voters, many of whom are naturalized, are bearing the brunt of it. We are suing to send a message that no eligible voter should be subjected to this intimidation tactic. We urge voters to go to the polls. Do not stay home out of fear.”

“Citizenship earned through naturalization is not second-class citizenship. Yet this administration is combing through immigration records to single out naturalized Americans, many of them Asian American and Pacific Islander, and to treat their right to vote as suspect. No other voters face this scrutiny. We are proud to stand with OCA and Common Cause to insist that every eligible voter, however they became a citizen, is treated equally under the law,” said Dahni Tsuboi, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California.

View the filing here.