A federal appeals court briefly allowed the Trump administration to resume investigating alleged noncitizen voting in California, but reversed that decision hours later. The full 11-judge 9th Circuit will rehear the case.
On Monday night, a three-judge panel granted the Justice Department’s request to pause a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge in San Francisco. The order had barred the administration from asking officials to set aside ballots while threatening prosecution for state and local election workers who refused.
The panel said the government was likely to succeed in arguing that its requests and criminal investigations were core responsibilities of the executive branch.
Later that night, the full appeals court vacated the panel’s ruling and sent the case to all 11 active judges for rehearing. The district court’s restrictions are back in place while the full court considers the matter.
Before the reversal, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli wrote on X that the temporary restraining order had been properly lifted. He said criminal investigations were an executive-branch function, not a matter for the courts to restrict.
Labor unions and civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens, brought the case. They argue that letters sent by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to election officials—warning of possible criminal liability over ballots associated with suspected noncitizens—were intimidating.
The administration says that allowing illegal voting and blocking investigations could expose those involved to prosecution. Essayli said Americans should be able to trust the election system and that criminal prosecution is the preferred response to violations of election law. He added that the administration would continue investigating and charging people suspected of breaking or helping others break those laws.
The appeals court’s reversal came on the same day the Supreme Court declined to grant the administration’s emergency request concerning roughly 20,000 California voters whom federal officials had flagged as likely noncitizens. The request sought to have their mail ballots set aside.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said on X that the administration would keep pursuing legal options to protect election integrity and enforce federal law.
The Justice Department had asked California to separate ballots it considers potentially unlawful and hold them until investigations determined whether the voters were U.S. citizens. California has rejected those investigations. In its Supreme Court filing, the department argued that once the ballots were mixed with lawful ones, they could not be separated again.
The department has argued that it is forced to wait until ballots are cast in California before taking legal action, even when it believes it has evidence that voters may be noncitizens.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Monday that 63 people had been charged with election-related crimes. He called it the largest increase in voter-fraud arrests since President Donald Trump returned to office and said the department would continue pursuing cases to rebuild public confidence in elections.
According to the Justice Department, 195 people described as illegal immigrants have been charged with illegal voting or voter-registration offenses across 25 states over the past nine weeks. The department says 239 people have faced voting-fraud charges since Trump returned to the White House.
