US civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” days ahead of midterm elections.

The plaintiff organizations, which include the ACLU Voting Rights Project, OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, and Common Cause, filed the suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The rights groups claim that the Unlawful Voter Initiative violates the Uniform Standards Provision of the Civil Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10101(a)(2)(A). The provision states that in determining whether an individual is eligible to vote in any election under state law, the “standards, practices, or procedures” applied to that individual must be the same as those applied to other individuals who have been found qualified to vote.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have a list of “Alien Numbers” and personally identifying information that are generated for naturalized and derivative citizens, not US-born citizens.

The civil rights organizations also claim that DHS and USCIS violate the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(5), which mandates that the agency must make records have “such accuracy, relevance, timeliness, and completeness as is reasonably necessary to assure fairness to [individuals].” The organizations allege that DHS and USCIS concede that the records they maintain are not accurate or complete.

The civil rights groups further claim that under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), courts must set aside agency guidelines that are “not in accordance with the law.”

DHS and USCIS announced the “Unlawful Voter Initiative” in August 2026, which systemically targets thousands of naturalized US citizens for voter eligibility investigations based on lists of Alien Numbers that are generated for naturalized citizens.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement that “the patriots of ICE have arrested dozens of non-citizens who illegally voted in American elections…  The Trump Administration will not allow illegal aliens to steal the votes of hardworking American citizens. American elections are for Americans only.”