Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin criticized a federal court decision that reinstated over 1,600 noncitizens to the state’s voter rolls, describing it as “beyond belief” during an appearance on Newsmax Saturday.

A federal judge on Friday ordered Virginia to restore more than 1,600 voter registrations that she said were illegally purged in the last two months in an effort to stop noncitizens from voting.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles granted an injunction request brought against Virginia election officials by the Justice Department, which claimed the voter registrations were wrongly canceled during a 90-day quiet period ahead of the November election that restricts states from making large-scale changes to their voter rolls.

“It’s almost beyond belief that people who had self-identified as noncitizens, who we then took off, are now being put back on the rolls,” he said during an appearance on “America Right Now.”

“We identified them through our DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] process, gave them two weeks’ notice, and they failed to affirm that they were citizens,” he added. “And, therefore, we took them off the voter rolls.

“I mean, it is really beyond anything that any, any person can possibly conceive of that we have a judge ordering us to put noncitizens back on the voter rolls,” he added.

“We are expediting an appeal, and we are asking for an emergency stay out of the 4th Circuit. And if we aren’t satisfied there, we’re going to the Supreme Court,” Youngkin said. “My job as governor is to go to work to make sure that our elections are fair and accurate and represent the will of citizens who vote.

“It is the exact fact that a previous administration in Virginia signed into law the ability for noncitizens to get temporary driver’s licenses that all of this was put in place in the first place,” Youngkin said.

Youngkin said Virginia has safeguards to ensure only eligible voters participate in elections.

“We have multiple fail-safes. This law has been in place for 18 years,” he said. “We also have the ultimate fail-safe in Virginia, where someone can same-day register in Virginia and then and then cast a provisional ballot, which will then be reviewed to make sure the person is a citizen.”

Youngkin criticized the DOJ’s involvement in the case.

“This is why Americans have lost faith in our Justice Department,” he added.

The Justice Department and private groups, including the League of Women Voters, said many of the 1,600 voters whose registrations were canceled were in fact citizens whose registrations were canceled because of bureaucratic errors or simple mistakes like a mischecked box on a form.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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