A federal appeals court briefly lifted a block on the Trump administration’s efforts to investigate alleged voting by noncitizens in California, then reversed course hours later, sending the dispute to the full 11-judge 9th Circuit for rehearing.
Earlier Monday night, a three-judge panel granted the Justice Department’s request to pause a temporary restraining order issued by a San Francisco federal judge. That order had barred the administration from making further requests to set aside ballots under the warning of prosecution of state and local election officials who declined.
The panel said the government was likely to prevail in arguing that its requests and criminal investigations were core executive functions.
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Hours later, the full 9th Circuit vacated the ruling and ordered the case reheard by all 11 active judges, according to the court’s order. The move restored the district court’s restrictions while the full court considers the dispute.
“The TRO issued by a San Francisco judge purporting to restrict DOJ investigations into election officials has been appropriately lifted,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli wrote on X before the temporary restraining order was restored. “Conducting criminal investigations is a core function of the executive branch, not the judiciary.”
The case against investigating allege noncitizen voting was brought by labor unions and civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens. They argued that DOJ and Homeland Security letters to election officials, which warned of potential criminal liability over ballots linked to suspected noncitizens, amounted to intimidation.
The Trump administration argues that allowing illegal voting and halting investigative work could lead to prosecution for those involved.
“Americans deserve to have confidence in their elections,” Essayli wrote late Monday night. “The courts have made it clear that the preferred remedy for election law violations is criminal prosecution. Building on Operation Protect the Vote, we will continue investigating and charging those who violate election laws or assist in their violation.”
The appeals court whiplash followed a separate Supreme Court rejection of the Trump administration’s effort to protect the vote Monday. The justices denied an emergency request to require California to set aside mail ballots from roughly 20,000 registered voters federal officials flagged as likely noncitizens.
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“We will continue pursuing every available legal avenue to protect the integrity of our elections and ensure federal law is enforced,” acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote on X.
The administration had demanded that California separate any allegedly unlawful ballots from other ballots and not count them until those voters are determined to be U.S. citizens through investigations that the state has rejected without review.
“Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back,” the Justice Department wrote in its request to the Supreme Court.
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The DOJ has been forced into a legal Catch-22 where it has to watch votes be cast in California, even if they have alleged evidence of them being noncitizen voters, and then pursue legal action afterward.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that 63 people were charged with election crimes Monday.
“Today’s announcement marks the largest surge of voter-fraud arrests since President [Donald] Trump returned to office,” Blanche wrote in a statement. “These foreign nationals allegedly took advantage of the trust of the American people and flouted the laws that govern our nation’s elections. This Department of Justice will continue investigating and prosecuting voter fraud to restore confidence in our electoral system.”
The DOJ has charged 195 illegal immigrants across 25 states with illegal voting and voter registration offenses in the past nine weeks. There have been charges against 239 people with voting fraud offenses since Trump returned to the White House, according to the DOJ.