Security personnel stand watch outside the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., in August. The Justice Department on Tuesday sued six more states for unredacted copies of their voter rolls. (Photo by Jonathan Shorman/Stateline)

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday expanded its legal campaign to force states to turn over voter lists containing sensitive personal information, suing six more states that have refused to provide the data.

The Justice Department has now sued officials in more than a dozen states for the voter lists, following a first round of lawsuits filed in September. The lawsuits are aimed at mostly Democratic states that won’t turn over unredacted copies of the lists, which include driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.

For months, the Trump administration has demanded that states provide copies of their voter lists, calling the information necessary for election integrity efforts. While some states have turned over lists that withhold sensitive personal data, most have declined to offer all the information on their lists.

Democratic election officials have raised privacy concerns over how the Trump administration plans to use the data. They are especially concerned that the Justice Department will share the data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is building a powerful citizenship verification tool. The Trump administration previously confirmed to Stateline it plans to share the data.

The new wave of lawsuits target Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, the Justice Department announced in a news release. The department has already sued California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release on Tuesday. “The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”

Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore in September offered the Justice Department a free copy of his state’s publicly available voter list. The information is typically provided upon request with a $25 fee, but he refused to provide confidential personal information absent legal action.

“This lawsuit, like those filed in other states, is a continuation of the current presidential administration’s unconstitutional attempts to interfere with elections processes across the country,” Amore said in a statement on Tuesday. “One of my most important responsibilities as the chief state election official is safeguarding the data privacy of Rhode Islanders, who entrust us with their personal information when they register to vote. I will continue to fight to protect it.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the states previously sued by the Department of Justice. Rhode Island Current reporters Nancy Lavin and Christopher Shea contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

A store displays a sign accepting Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, cards for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases for groceries on Oct. 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will begin next week to block nutrition assistance funding for states led by Democrats that have not provided data on fraud in the program, Secretary Brooke Rollins told President Donald Trump at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

USDA sought data from states earlier this year related to their administration of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, Rollins said Tuesday. She added the data was needed to address fraud that she called “rampant” in the program that helps 42 million people afford groceries.

Most states complied with the request, but 21, mostly run by Democrats, refused, she said. A USDA spokesperson later implied the department was missing data from 22 states.

“As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply, and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer,” Rollins said.

A USDA spokesperson in an email listed 28 states, plus one territory, from which they said the department has received data.

That would leave the following 22 states, all led by Democratic governors, that have not provided data: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. 

The spokesperson provided some additional details of the initiative, including that the department was targeting administrative funds, and that the next step would be a formal warning.

Blue states sought to protect bad actors, including criminals and immigrants in the country without legal status, “over the American taxpayer,” the statement said.

“We have sent Democrat States yet another request for data, and if they fail to comply, they will be provided with formal warning that USDA will pull their administrative funds,” the spokesperson said.

Court records show the department sent the states a new request for data on Nov. 28, and asked for a response within seven days, which would be Friday. 

The letter was reproduced as part of a suit the 22 states have brought against the administration over the request for SNAP recipients’ data.

Leading Dem calls threat illegal

It’s unclear what authority Rollins would have to block funding, which Congress has appropriated.

The federal government pays for all benefits for SNAP, which was formerly known as food stamps. It splits the administrative costs with states.

The USDA spokesperson did not answer a direct question about the legal authority for withholding funds.

Democrats on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee said any effort to block SNAP funding would be illegal.

“Yet again, Trump and Rollins are illegally threatening to withhold federal dollars,” a social media post from an official account of committee Democrats read. “SNAP has one of the lowest fraud rates of any government program, but Trump continues to weaponize hunger.”

The committee’s lead Democrat, Angie Craig of Minnesota, issued her own statement that also accused the administration of “weaponizing hunger” and said Rollins “continues to spew propaganda.”

“Her disregard for the law and willingness to lie through her teeth comes from the very top – the Trump administration is as corrupt as it is lawless, and I will not sit silently as she carries out the president’s campaign against Americans struggling to afford food in part because of this president’s tariffs and disastrous economic policies.”  

SNAP fraud

The data USDA has sought from states includes verification of SNAP recipients’ eligibility, along with a host of personal information such as Social Security numbers.

An early USDA review of data provided by the 28 states and Guam “indicates an estimated average of $24 million dollars per day of federal funds is lost to fraud and errors undetected by States in their administration of SNAP,” the department said in the Nov. 28 letter.

Preventing those losses could save up to $9 billion per year, the letter added.

But the types of fraud cited in some of the public statements from Rollins and the department are rare, existing data show.

A 2023 USDA report showed about 26,000 applications, roughly 0.1% of the households enrolled in SNAP, were referred for an administrative or criminal review.

People in the country illegally have never been authorized to receive SNAP benefits.

“The long-standing data sources indicate that intentional fraud by participants is rare,” Katie Bergh, a senior food assistance policy analyst for the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a November interview.

Trump administration target

SNAP has been a consistent target for cuts during Trump’s second presidency.

The issue was a focal point during the six-week government shutdown, during which the administration reversed itself often but generally resisted calls — from states, advocates, lawmakers and federal judges — to fund food assistance.

Shortly after the government reopened, Rollins in television interviews said she would force all recipients to reapply for benefits, a proposal seen as logistically challenging by program experts.

And the Republican taxes and spending law passed by Congress and signed by Trump earlier this year included new work requirements and other restrictions on SNAP eligibility that advocates say will lead to major drops in benefits. 

The law will also make states pay for some share of benefits and increase the share of administrative costs that states are responsible for, potentially leading some states to cut benefits.

Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court in New York City in October. While arrests at federal immigration courts have received widespread attention, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have also arrested individuals at state courthouses, prompting some Democratic states to impose restrictions. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

A day after President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a new directive to its agents: Arrests at courthouses, restricted under the Biden administration, were again permissible.

In Connecticut, a group of observers who keep watch on ICE activity in and around Stamford Superior Court have since witnessed a series of arrests. In one high-profile case in August, federal agents pursued two men into a bathroom.

“Is it an activity you want to be interfering with, people fulfilling their duty when they’re called to court and going to court? For me, it’s insanity,” said David Michel, a Democratic former state representative in Connecticut who helps observe courthouse activity.

Fueled by the Stamford uproar, Connecticut lawmakers last week approved restrictions on civil arrests and mask-wearing by federal law enforcement at state courthouses. And on Monday, a federal judge tossed a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice that had sought to block similar restrictions in New York.

They are the latest examples of a growing number of Democratic states, and some judges, pushing back against ICE arrests in and around state courthouses. State lawmakers and other officials worry the raids risk keeping people from testifying in criminal trials, fighting evictions or seeking restraining orders against domestic abusers.

The courthouse arrests mark an intensifying clash between the Trump administration and Democratic states that pits federal authority against state sovereignty. Sitting at the core of the fight are questions about how much power states have to control what happens in their own courts and the physical grounds they sit on.

In Illinois, lawmakers approved a ban on civil immigration arrests at courthouses in October. In Rhode Island, lawmakers plan to again push for a ban after an earlier measure didn’t advance in March. Connecticut lawmakers were codifying limits imposed by the state Supreme Court chief justice in September. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to sign the bill.

States that are clamping down on ICE continue to allow the agency to make criminal arrests, as opposed to noncriminal civil arrests. Many people arrested and subsequently deported are taken on noncriminal, administrative warrants. As of Sept. 21, 71.5% of ICE detainees had no criminal convictions, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization.

Some states, such as New York, already have limits on immigration enforcement in courthouses that date back to the first Trump administration, when ICE agents also engaged in courthouse arrests. New York’s Protect Our Courts Act, in place since 2020, prohibits civil arrests of people at state and local courthouses without a judicial warrant. The law also applies to people traveling to and from court, extending protections beyond courthouse grounds.

“One of the cornerstones of our democracy is open access to the courts. When that access is denied or chilled, all of us are made less safe and less free,” said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group that works to provide legal support to immigrants, people of color and low-income individuals.

But in addition to challenging the New York law, the Justice Department is prosecuting a Wisconsin state judge, alleging she illegally helped a migrant avoid ICE agents.

“We aren’t some medieval kingdom; there are no legal sanctuaries where you can hide and avoid the consequences for breaking the law,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Stateline. “Nothing in the constitution prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them.”

Some Republican lawmakers oppose efforts to limit ICE arrests in and near courthouses, arguing state officials should stay out of the way of federal law enforcement. The Ohio Senate in June passed a bill that would prohibit public officials from interfering in immigration arrests or prohibiting cooperation with ICE; the move came after judges in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, imposed restrictions on civil arrests in courthouses.

“The United States is a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of law and order. To have a civilized society, laws must be respected, this includes immigration laws,” Ohio Republican state Sen. Kristina Roegner, the bill’s sponsor, said in a news release at the time.

Roegner didn’t respond to Stateline’s interview request. The legislation remains in a House committee.

Knowing where a target will be

Courthouses offer an attractive location for ICE to make immigration arrests, according to both ICE and advocates for migrants.

Court records and hearing schedules often indicate who is expected in the building on any given day. Administrative warrants don’t allow ICE to enter private homes without permission, but the same protections don’t apply in public areas, such as courthouses. And many people have a strong incentive to show up for court, knowing that warrants can potentially be issued for their arrest if they don’t.

“So in some respects, it’s easy pickings,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island.

In June, ICE arrested Pablo Grave de la Cruz at Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal in Cranston. A 36-year-old Rhode Island resident, he had come from Guatemala illegally as a teenager.

“They pulled up on him like he was a murderer or a rapist,” friend Brittany Donohue told the Rhode Island Current, which chronicled de la Cruz’s case. “He was leaving traffic court.”

An immigration judge has since granted de la Cruz permission to self-deport.

McLaughlin, the Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in her statement that allowing law enforcement to make arrests “of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense” — conserving law enforcement resources because officers know where a target will be. The department said the practice is safer for officers and the community, noting that individuals have gone through courthouse security.

Still, ICE’s directive on courthouse arrests sets some limits on the agency’s activity.

Agents “should, to the extent practicable” conduct civil immigration arrests in non-public areas of the courthouse and avoid public entrances. Actions should be taken “discreetly” to minimize disruption to court proceedings, and agents should generally avoid areas wholly dedicated to non-criminal proceedings, such as family court, the directive says.

Crucially, the directive says ICE can conduct civil immigration arrests “where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction.” In other words, the agency’s guidance directs agents to respect state and local bans on noncriminal arrests.

Trump administration court actions

But the Trump administration has also gone to court to try to overcome state-level restrictions.

The Justice Department sued in June over New York’s Protect Our Courts Act, arguing that it “purposefully shields dangerous aliens” from lawful detention. The department says the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, under which federal law supersedes state law.

New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James argued the state law doesn’t conflict with federal law and sought the lawsuit’s dismissal.

U.S. District Court Judge Mae D’Agostino, an appointee of President Barack Obama, on Monday granted James’ motion. The judge wrote that the “entire purpose” of the lawsuit was to allow the federal government to commandeer New York’s resources — such as court schedules and court security screening measures — to aid immigration enforcement, even though states cannot generally be required to help the federal government enforce federal law.

“Compelling New York to allow federal immigration authorities to reap the benefits of the work of state employees is no different than permitting the federal government to commandeer state officials directly in furtherance of federal objectives,” the judge wrote.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The department is also prosecuting Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan, who prosecutors allege helped a person living in the country illegally avoid ICE agents in April inside a Milwaukee courthouse by letting him exit a courtroom through a side door. (Agents apprehended the individual near the courthouse.) A federal grand jury indicted Dugan on a count of concealing an individual and a count of obstructing a proceeding.

In court documents, Dugan’s lawyers have called the prosecution “virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional.”

Dugan has pleaded not guilty, and a trial is set for December.

Lawmakers seek ‘order’ in courthouses

Rhode Island Democratic state Sen. Meghan Kallman is championing legislation that would generally ban civil arrests at courthouses. The measure received a hearing, but a legislative committee recommended further study.

Kallman hopes the bill will go further next year. The sense of urgency has intensified, she said, and more people now understand the consequences of what is happening.

“In order to create a system of law that is functioning and that encourages trust, we have to make those [courthouse] spaces safe,” she said.

Back in Connecticut, Democratic state Rep. Steven Stafstrom said his day job as a commercial litigator brings him into courthouses across the state weekly. Based on his conversations with court staff, other lawyers and senior administration within the judicial branch, he said “there’s a genuine fear, not just for safety, but for disruptions of orderly court processes in our courthouses.”

Some Connecticut Republicans have questioned whether a law that only pertains to civil arrests would prove effective. State Rep. Craig Fishbein, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, noted during floor debate that entering the United States without permission is a criminal offense — a misdemeanor for first-time offenders and a felony for repeat offenders. Because of that, he suggested the measure wouldn’t stop many courthouse arrests.

“The advocates think they’re getting no arrests in courthouses, but they’ve been sold a bill of goods,” he said.

Stafstrom, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said in response that he believed the legislation protects many people who are in the country illegally because that crime is often not prosecuted.

“All we’re asking is for ICE to recognize the need for order in our courthouses,” Stafstrom said.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Federal agents, including members of the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol, and police, attempt to keep protesters back outside a downtown U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Oct. 4, 2025 in Portland, Oregon.  (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The White House slammed a President Donald Trump-appointed federal judge Monday for blocking the deployment of National Guard troops to Oregon, as hostilities escalate between the administration and Democratic states where Trump has begun sending in troops over governors’ objections.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration is within legal bounds and will appeal the district court’s decision, which she described as “untethered in reality and in the law.” 

“The president is using his authority as commander in chief, U.S. Code 12406, which clearly states that the president has the right to call up the National Guard in cases where he deems it’s appropriate,” Leavitt said at the press briefing, referring to a section in Title 10 of the U.S. Code that authorizes the president to send in the National Guard in cases of invasion or rebellion.

Leavitt told reporters that a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, facility in Portland where nightly protests have been occurring has been “under siege” by “anarchists.”

“They have been disrespecting law enforcement. They’ve been inciting violence,” Leavitt said.

Mainstream local media reports and statements from local officials have contradicted that claim.

​​”There is no need for military intervention in Oregon. There is no insurrection in Portland. No threat to national security,” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said in a statement Sunday.

Federal agents used tear gas and pepper balls on nonviolent protesters Saturday evening, according to local media reports.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also filed a legal challenge against the administration Monday morning. A federal judge set a hearing for Thursday. Illinois and Chicago sought a temporary restraining order to stop Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from ordering Texas and Illinois Guard troops to the country’s third-largest city.

Trump teases Insurrection Act 

Trump on Monday afternoon raised the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, a tool to expand the president’s legal authority for using military personnel for domestic law enforcement.

Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office the conditions under which he would invoke the law, Trump said “if it was necessary,” and speculated that he could use it to defy courts or state officials.

“So far it hasn’t been necessary,” he said. “But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were getting killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that. I want to make sure that people aren’t killed. We have to make sure our cities are safe.”

Court battle in Portland 

In Oregon, federal District Judge Karin Immergut broadened her order Sunday night barring the Trump administration from deploying any National Guard troops to Portland. 

The edict came after Trump and Hegseth defied a temporary restraining order that Immergut issued Saturday halting 200 Oregon National Guard troops from being sent there. 

Immergut was nominated by Trump in 2019 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate by voice vote.

The administration maintains the Guard is needed to protect federal agents, as sustained small protests pop up outside an ICE facility 2 miles south of city hall. Kotek rebuffed Trump’s claims that the city is “on fire” and said local authorities are equipped to handle the demonstrations that lately range from a dozen or so people to roughly 100.

Trump ordered 101 California National Guard troops to Portland overnight, without the knowledge of Kotek, she said Sunday. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat, confirmed that Trump had ordered up to 300 of his state’s National Guard troops to Oregon. 

Just before Immergut’s Sunday night emergency hearing, an Oregon assistant attorney general filed a memo with the court showing that Hegseth had ordered 400 Texas National Guard troops to Portland and Chicago.

California joined Oregon and Portland in suing the administration.

‘A domestic militarization’

Pritzker said he has urged Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to “immediately withdraw his support for this decision and refuse to allow Texas National Guard members to be used in this way.”

“Let me be clear, Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,” Pritzker said at a press conference Monday afternoon.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said the deployment “is unfair to National Guardsmen, it is unfair to local law enforcement, and it is certainly unfair to the law-abiding citizens of Illinois who do not want to be subject to military occupation.”

Chicago is nearly a month into a federal immigration crackdown. Dozens of federal agents raided an apartment building in the city’s South Shore neighborhood on Sept. 30, ziptying adults and children, and detaining some U.S. citizens, according to multiple media reports. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security published a highly produced video of the raid on social media.

Trump’s federalization and deployment of National Guard troops to mostly Democratic-run states has alarmed political and constitutional experts. 

Pat Eddington, senior fellow in homeland and civil liberties at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he agrees with Pritzker’s concerns.

“I share his belief 100% that the use of the American military and all these massive employment of ICE and HSI and FBI and marshals and the rest for ostensible immigration enforcement and ostensible crime control, it’s really designed to lay the groundwork to normalize a militarization, essentially a domestic militarization of Americans, civic life,” Eddington told States Newsroom in an interview in late September.

On a Monday afternoon press call, Hima Shansi, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security program, said Trump’s use of military and federal police forces in recent months “raises serious constitutional concerns in terms of federalism, the separation of powers between the federal government and the states which generally exercise police power.”

“What that means in real-people language is that, as the states have been saying, they are fully capable of doing their jobs as needed, and there is absolutely no reason for the president to assert federal power in the way that he is forcibly doing.”

Starting in Los Angeles

Trump federalized California National Guard troops and deployed U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in June in response to protests against aggressive immigration enforcement there. 

Newsom objected to the plan and sued to stop the deployment. A federal judge initially sided with the Democratic governor and blocked the deployment, but an appeals panel reversed the decision. 

The trial court ruled again in September that Trump had overstepped the line separating military forces from law enforcement. The administration has appealed.

While that case in California was ongoing, Trump also ordered the District of Columbia National Guard to assist local police in the nation’s capital. Because the district is a federal territory, it is relatively clear that move was within the president’s legal authority, even if many Trump critics questioned its necessity. 

National Guard troops from several Republican states also deployed to the district in a more legally dubious move.

Trump also ordered Tennessee National Guard troops to Memphis last month, with the approval of the state’s Republican governor.

Ashley Murray reported from Washington, D.C. Jacob Fischler reported from Portland, Oregon.