Civil rights groups sued the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday in the Northern District of California, alleging a USCIS voter-eligibility program unlawfully investigates naturalized and derivative U.S. citizens less than a week before Election Day^1,2,4.

The complaint was brought by OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates and related chapters, Common Cause, ACLU affiliates in California, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice groups, with the ACLU Voting Rights Project as counsel^2,4.

Plaintiffs describe an Unlawful Voter Initiative they say USCIS has run since August 2026 to track and investigate foreign-born citizens for possible noncitizen voting^2,1.

They say the process relies on outdated data and methods that can flag people who later naturalized, and they ask the court to halt the initiative and to stop federal officials from pressing states not to issue or count ballots based on DHS lists of suspected noncitizens^2,3,4.

John C. Yang, president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said naturalized citizens have the same right to vote as people born in the United States¹.

News From The States, the States Newsroom national desk whose copy also ran on sister sites, reported that DHS did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday¹.

In a separate news release on voter-fraud arrests, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the administration would not allow noncitizens to steal votes and that American elections are for Americans only^1,3.

The Justice Department has sued to keep California from counting ballots of about 20,000 people on a DHS-compiled list of suspected noncitizens and has made a similar demand covering about 400 people in Washington state, according to those accounts^1,3.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in San Francisco paused certain election-related DHS field operations in nine states through Election Day after other plaintiffs said agents were questioning people at home; DHS has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift that order^1,3.

NOTUS reported that a divided 9th Circuit panel this week dismissed for now an emergency bid to force California to segregate those mail ballots³.

Pew Research Center analysis cited by States Newsroom puts naturalized citizens at about 10 percent of eligible voters this year, with higher shares in California, Florida, New Jersey and New York¹.

Whether the new complaint will yield a temporary order before polls close, and how many people have been contacted under the initiative, were not established in the public accounts reviewed^1,2,3.