In order to stop what they are calling “an unlawful and discriminatory program … that systematically targets, investigates, and intimidates naturalized U.S. citizens,” a coalition of Asian American civil rights organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Common Cause filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Thursday afternoon.
The Oct. 28 lawsuit seeks to immediately stop the program—called the Unlawful Voter Initiative—and block the federal government from exerting pressure on state election officials to withhold or discard ballots cast by those who appear on government lists, which the ACLU calls “unreliable.”
“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.”
The ACLU alleges that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has since August run the so-called “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” which tracks and investigates “foreign-born citizens under the guise of voter eligibility checks.”
The lawsuit specifically points out that even the largest claims of noncitizen voters or registrants cannot identify more than one-tenth of 1% of active, registered voters in any given state as noncitizen voters or registrants. Despite this, the federal government has undertaken great pains to target certain groups of voters.
“As part of this initiative, federal agents rely on outdated, error-prone data and questionable methods—including posing as individual voters to search private voter registration records on state election websites,” the ACLU said. “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.”
In September, the lawsuit said, two U.S. senators revealed that a whistleblower had brought the Unlawful Voter Initiative to their attention. In their correspondence with the federal government, the two senators described the report as “serious allegations of illegal and inappropriate activities” inside USCIS related to the initiative.
In order to generate the lists of people suspected of being noncitizen voters or registrants, the federal government broadly follows three steps, the lawsuit said.
First, the lawsuit states, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) generates what the government calls the DHS List, “using a combination of unnamed and unverified government data sources.” This “dubious” list consists of “voters it suspects have registered or voted illegally in the past as noncitizens.”
Next, DHS directs agents to “illegally access state voter registration portals and obtain or verify an individual’s voting history.”
Finally, “despite known issues with the DHS List, DHS directs agents to create TECS records for individuals who, based on this process, agents purport to be unlawful voters.”
“The specifics of how the DHS List was generated remain unknown,” the lawsuit notes. The agency has disclosed neither its sources nor its method, and has not confirmed whether it has cross-checked with other agencies for accuracy.
“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,” said Dahni Tsuboi, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California. “No other voters face this scrutiny.”
John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, said that the initiative “was never designed to confirm citizenship, and election officials have found it erroneously flagging eligible voters.”
“Asian American voters, many of whom are naturalized, are bearing the brunt of it,” he said. “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.”
The lawsuit also demands that the court formally declare that the program violates several acts, including the Civil Rights Act’s Uniform Standards Provision.
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