Noncitizen voting ruling explained: Federal judge strikes down Trump administration's ban

A federal judge in Miami has ruled that a decades-old law criminalising voting by noncitizens is unconstitutional, delivering a setback to the Trump’s administration’s crackdown on alleged election fraud ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz dismissed the case Thursday, October 1, against Chelsea Cox, a Jamaican national charged in October 2025 with illegally voting in the 2020 presidential election.

In a 31-page order, Leibowitz found that under the U.S. Constitution, only states, not Congress, have the authority to set voter qualifications.

Leibowitz wrote: “The text, structure, and original public meaning of the Constitution show that Congress doesn’t have the constitutional power to enact this statute.”

Cox entered the U.S. as a tourist in 1999, overstayed her visa, and used a fraudulent U.S. Virgin Islands birth certificate to obtain a Florida driver’s license and register to vote in 2012, as per court filings.

The Justice Department has charged at least 60 people with noncitizen voting since Trump returned to office in January 2025. Trump has falsely claimed noncitizen voting cost him the 2020 election, though election experts say the practice is rare.

According to a Reuters investigation, among 129 people charged with “voting by an alien” since 2021, none was accused of conspiring to sway an election. Most were lawful permanent residents who registered by mistake or on incorrect advice from election workers. Cox attorney, Bruce Udolf, welcomed the ruling and urged authorities not to deport her, citing her declining health.