Supreme Court Shuts Down Trump Admin Effort to Prevent Noncitizen Voting

The Supreme Court on Monday denied the Department of Justice’s emergency application for an injunction that would have compelled California to segregate mail ballots cast by voters who could be noncitizens.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the application on Monday morning. The Court denied it the same day without asking California to respond. 

From CNN:

The Supreme Court on Monday quickly shut down President Donald Trump’s effort to force California to sideline potentially thousands of ballots that the Justice Department claims may have been cast by noncitizens, rejecting the administration’s emergency request hours after it was filed.

The unusually fast decision underscored that the administration’s case, which was based on an uncertain methodology, was a reach that has been rejected by every court to consider it. The appeal also came to the high court on an exceedingly tight timeline — on the eve of the midterm election — with an unknown number of mail ballots in question likely already counted.

The court did not explain its reasoning and instead handed down only a one-sentence order. There were no noted dissents.

🚨 BREAKING: The Supreme Court just REJECTED the Trump administration’s emergency request to make California set aside roughly 20,000 mail ballots from voters the feds flagged as noncitizens UNREAL. That means those ballots get mixed in with everyone else’s on Election Day. John Sauer warned the justices: “Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back.” A district judge, a split Ninth Circuit, Judge Boasberg, and now SCOTUS have all refused to act. Absolutely outrageous. If even a fraction of those voters turn out to be noncitizens, nobody will be able to pull those votes back out 😡 Get out and vote TOMORROW!

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 2, 2026

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent a letter to California authorities claiming that about 190,832 noncitizens might be registered to vote in the state. The list later shrank to about 20,000 names.

A Ninth Circuit panel first dismissed the DOJ’s appeal of the district court’s ruling. Judge Carter then denied the temporary restraining order on October 28, reasoning that the DOJ likely lacked standing and a cause of action. He also determined that the process for building the list of noncitizens was not credible.

BREAKING: The U.S. Supreme Court has STRUCK DOWN the Trump administration’s emergency petition to require California to segregate ~20K ballots from alleged noncitizens for citizenship verification. “Justice Elena Kagan denied the request without comment, did not refer to the other justices.” OUTRAGEOUS. The Court offered no explanation and no noted dissents—on the eve of the election. Lower courts had already blocked it. How can Americans trust elections when DEEP-BLUE states refuse basic citizenship verification of their voter roll?!?!

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) November 2, 2026

Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision. He called it “a welcome sight for all Americans given the disgusting and dangerous attacks on our democracy by the federal government.”

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