A Ninth Circuit panel rejected the Trump DOJ’s bid to segregate roughly 20,000 California mail ballots tied to alleged noncitizens, returning the fight to district court.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused Monday to grant the Justice Department an immediate order forcing California to set aside about 20,000 mail-in ballots the Trump administration says went to people likely to be noncitizens. The 2-1 ruling held that the appeals court lacked jurisdiction at this stage and sent the dispute back for a district court hearing set for Tuesday afternoon.

ABC News reported that the panel’s majority, Circuit Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez, faulted the timing of the federal request and said the claimed emergency was, at least in part, of the government’s own making. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented. Bennett and Bumatay were appointed by President Donald Trump; Sanchez was appointed by President Joe Biden.

The Justice Department filed suit earlier this month accusing California of failing to review a list of alleged noncitizens who, the administration contends, were sent mail-in ballots for next week’s midterm election. Federal law and California law both make it illegal for noncitizens to vote. The emergency appeal followed a rare Sunday hearing as mail ballots were already moving through the system.

That posture matters. When citizenship checks arrive after ballots are already in the pipeline, courts lean hard on process and jurisdiction, even when the underlying concern is basic election integrity.

Judges pressed the Justice Department on power and timing

During the emergency session, Bennett repeatedly questioned whether the appeals court could act before the lower court ruled. He told DOJ attorney Matthew Donnelly he did not see a path for appellate jurisdiction at that stage.

"I don't see how we have jurisdiction,"

Bennett said, according to the coverage. He also challenged the theory that a federal criminal statute barring voting by illegal immigrants could override California’s rules on how elections are run under the Constitution’s Elections Clause, the provision that leaves the “manner” of holding elections largely to the states, unless Congress sets uniform rules.

"How can the legislature making laws with regard to the manner of holding elections be preempted by a criminal statute passed by the Congress, especially when both the Congress and the California Legislature have made it illegal for non-citizens to vote?"

Bennett asked. Fox News reported that the nearly two-hour hearing put heavy pressure on the administration’s request, with judges probing whether a federal injunction would clash with state election law already in force.

Donnelly argued the decision to seek emergency relief came after California disclosed that mail-in ballots already being processed numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The DOJ position, as described in court, was that California’s handling of the roughly 20,000-person list undercut federal enforcement of the ban on voting by illegal immigrants.

The administration’s broader push to police election administration has also included other Justice Department actions, including a directed suit over Alaska Senate certification in a separate name-confusion dispute.

Majority called the emergency partly “self-constructed”

In the written majority ruling, Bennett and Sanchez did not resolve whether the listed voters are citizens. They focused on delay, scale, and jurisdiction.

"The United States’s claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one. At least part of the delay here is attributable to the United States’s own delay in filing suit, in realizing that existing California state law governs the issuance and processing of ballots, in recognizing that California has millions of registered voters and processes ballots on a schedule aligned with that scale, and in communicating to the court its desired relief."

Just the News noted that the judges concluded the federal government had not given the district court enough opportunity to consider temporary relief before racing upstairs. The Washington Examiner likewise described the 2-1 order as finding a lack of jurisdiction and treating the emergency appellate motion as moot for that reason.

Sanchez, in language highlighted by other outlets, warned that setting the ballots aside so late would revise California’s election rules midstream and “usher in electoral chaos,” and said it risked disenfranchising citizens if the federal list proved inaccurate. Those concerns about list quality sat alongside the administration’s claim that noncitizen voting is both unlawful and intolerable.

Immigration enforcement and document fraud remain live fights in Washington as well, including recent comments that Rep. Ilhan Omar could face jail in a separate immigration-fraud probe.

Los Angeles sample undercuts a clean noncitizen narrative

California officials did not concede the list. In court papers filed earlier last week, Los Angeles officials offered a preliminary look at 200 of the roughly 20,000 names. Nearly 40 percent of those records “indicate that they were born in the United States, which is strong evidence of citizenship,” and 71.2 percent of the records had no voting history, the filing said.

A high share of U.S.-birth indicators in a small sample does not prove every name on the full list is lawful. It does show why judges demanded more process before ordering mass segregation of ballots already in motion. It also shows why citizenship verification belongs earlier in the registration pipeline, not in a last-minute emergency scramble after ballots have gone out.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta cast the ruling in partisan terms. Breitbart reported that Bonta called Monday’s decision a “welcome speed bump to Trump’s disgusting attacks on the Constitution and our country’s democracy.” That rhetoric treats a dispute over illegal voting and list review as an assault on democracy itself.

Public concern about illegal immigration and public safety has been sharpened by other recent cases, including the arrest tied to a sledgehammer assault on the Quantico Iwo Jima memorial.

District court is next, with the midterms days away

The practical result is procedural, not a final word on the merits. The appeals court declined to issue the immediate segregation order. The underlying DOJ lawsuit against California remains alive for the district judge to hear Tuesday afternoon. No ruling yet decides how many of the roughly 20,000 people are citizens, how the list was built, or what permanent relief, if any, is lawful.

What the record does establish is straightforward. The Trump administration sought to stop counting of mail ballots it says were sent to likely noncitizens. A 9th Circuit majority said it lacked jurisdiction to grant that emergency relief and blamed part of the crunch on federal delay. A Trump-appointed judge joined a Biden-appointed colleague in that majority. Another Trump appointee dissented. California officials answered with a sample that shows many U.S.-birth markers and little voting history. Ballots numbered in the hundreds of thousands were already being processed.

Election integrity does not improve when citizenship questions are left until mail ballots are already in the hopper. Lawful voters deserve systems that catch illegal participation before Election Day, not courtroom fire drills after the envelopes are out the door.

If states and courts treat last-minute citizenship fights as the main line of defense, the public will keep watching ballots move while the hard verification work stays unfinished.