Justice Department Asks Judge Boasberg to Weigh Contempt Referral After Immigrant Group Published Analysis of Its Noncitizen Voter List
The Justice Department has asked Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg to order an immigrant rights group and its lawyers to show cause why they did not violate his order, and to consider referring the matter to the department for a possible criminal contempt investigation, according to a motion filed Sunday in federal court in Washington.
The filing targets an expert analysis that the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, known as CHIRLA, made public Saturday after Boasberg let its legal team see the government's list of more than 20,000 California registrants that the government believes are highly likely noncitizens.
The list at the center of the fight is the one federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have used to press California to set aside ballots before Tuesday's election. In an Oct. 30 interview on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said, "This time we actually brought the receipts," and that the government can prove "at least 20,000 people" on the state's rolls are not citizens. Those are the government's claims; no court has ruled on them.
Video: Fox News, "The Ingraham Angle" (Oct. 30, 2026)
What the Justice Department Is Asking For
Boasberg's Oct. 30 minute order allowed the group to use the list "in relation to their standing arguments only," barred sharing it beyond the legal team and an expert, and required names to be redacted from public filings.
On Saturday, the group filed its expert's findings. They included that 8,880 names, or 42%, on the list "were not anywhere to be found on the current California voter file," and that at least 22 entries fully matched people on CHIRLA's own list of citizen members and clients.
The department's motion says those statistics went "far beyond" standing and "appears calculated to stir up media criticism." It asks the court to strike six paragraphs of the expert declaration and to impose civil sanctions, "for example, dismissing Plaintiffs' complaint." It adds that the court "should also consider referring this matter to the Department of Justice for investigation into possible criminal contempt by Plaintiffs and their counsel if they violated the order willfully."
The department also says it would have sought emergency appellate relief to block disclosure of the list had it known the limits "could be evaded." In a footnote, it says Homeland Security Investigations believes the voter data came from the California secretary of state's office, so criticism of the rolls "is better directed at the State of California." In a separate filing, it asked the court not to consider a table of matches the group submitted to the judge alone unless the government gets it too.
The Group's Response
Boasberg ordered the group to answer by 9 a.m. Monday. In a response filed Sunday, the group's lawyers wrote that they "complied with all four requirements of the Order" and that the rule the government invoked to strike material applies only to pleadings.
The response describes how the list was handled: an expert and a lawyer received a thumb drive and a paper with two passwords "in front of an entrance to the Department of Justice Building" at about 6:03 p.m. Oct. 30; UCLA Voting Rights Project staff bought "a new windows-based laptop" at Best Buy to open the file; and the drive is now stored "in a locked and mounted safe." It says only the expert and his data assistant saw names, and that the public report redacted every name. It argues every analysis "was believed to be relevant to Plaintiffs' standing arguments."
As of Monday morning, the public docket showed no ruling on the motion. On Sunday, Essayli wrote on X that California could resolve the dispute "in under a day" by running its voter rolls through the federal citizenship database it uses for Medi-Cal.
Sources: CHIRLA v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 1:26-cv-03072 (D.D.C.), docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74737644/trujillo-v-us-department-of-homeland-security/ ; Defendants' Motion to Strike and to Order Plaintiffs to Show Cause, ECF No. 45 (Nov. 1, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136.45.0.pdf ; Defendants' Response, ECF No. 44 (Nov. 1, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136.44.0.pdf ; Plaintiffs' Response, ECF No. 46 (Nov. 1, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136.46.0.pdf ; Plaintiffs' Supplemental Memorandum, ECF No. 43 (Oct. 31, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136/gov.uscourts.dcd.296136.43.0.pdf ; Fox News, "Essayli: We have the receipts, but California doesn't want to hear the evidence" (Oct. 30, 2026): https://www.foxnews.com/video/6407630933112 ; Bill Essayli on X (Nov. 1, 2026): https://x.com/USAttyEssayli/status/2116942504260161714 ; New York Post, "LA's top federal prosecutor throws down the gauntlet as noncitizen voter fight goes down to the wire" (Nov. 1, 2026): https://nypost.com/2026/11/01/us-news/bill-essayli-attacks-california-over-noncitizen-voters/ ; Cover photo: E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse by AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikimedia Commons, public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E._Barrett_Prettyman_Federal_Courthouse,_DC.jpg
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