Federal judge finds law criminalizing noncitizen voting unconstitutional

A federal judge on Thursday declared a 30-year-old law criminalizing noncitizen voting unconstitutional and dismissed a case against a Jamaican woman accused of illegally casting a ballot in the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz ruled that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority when it enacted the federal prohibition on noncitizen voting in 1996, concluding that the Constitution leaves the power to establish voter qualifications to the states.

Leibowitz is the nephew of Norman Braman, a billionaire with a car dealership empire who was one of Marco Rubio’s most prominent benefactors, donating between $5 million and $10 million to his 2016 presidential campaign.

The ruling applies only to the prosecution of Chelsea Cox, a Florida resident charged in October 2025 with voting illegally in the 2020 election. It does not prevent Florida from enforcing its own citizenship requirements for voting and is not binding on federal judges considering similar challenges elsewhere.

Still, the decision appears to be the first to find the federal statute unconstitutional and the ruling could influence roughly 45 pending cases involving allegations of noncitizen voting around the country.

The ruling represents a setback for President Donald Trump’s administration, which has made prosecution of noncitizen voting a prominent part of its election enforcement efforts ahead of the November midterm elections. The Justice Department has charged at least 60 people with noncitizen voting since Trump returned to office in January 2025.

The law at issue, 18 U.S.C. § 611, generally makes it a federal crime for a noncitizen to vote in an election held partly or entirely to elect the president, vice president or members of Congress. Violations are punishable by a fine, imprisonment for up to one year, or both. Congress enacted the provision as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

Leibowitz—who was recommended by Rubio while he was a U.S. Senator in 2021, to President Joe Biden, who nominated him—concluded that the Constitution assigns the establishment of voter qualifications to the states rather than Congress.

Every state requires U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections. Leibowitz said Florida therefore has the authority to prohibit and prosecute the conduct alleged against Cox, but that does not give Congress independent authority to establish a federal crime covering the same conduct.

“Can the State of Florida prohibit and punish the exact conduct Defendant Cox allegedly engaged in here?” Leibowitz wrote. “This has already been decided elsewhere and is not addressed here: Florida can and does.”

Federal prosecutors had argued that Congress possessed authority to enact the law because noncitizen participation in federal elections implicates immigration, foreign affairs and the potential for foreign interference.

“Foreign interference in elections is clearly within the purview of Congress,” prosecutors argued, according to Reuters.

Cox’s attorney, Bruce Udolf, welcomed the decision and urged federal authorities not to pursue further action against his client.

“This is a situation that cries out for discretion by government officials and they’d be well-advised to walk away from this without further reprisal against her,” Udolf told Reuters.

According to government court filings, Cox entered the United States as a tourist in 1999 and remained after her visa expired the following year. Prosecutors alleged that she later used a fraudulent U.S. Virgin Islands birth certificate to obtain a Florida driver’s license and used the documents to register to vote in 2012.

Records cited by Reuters show Cox voted in federal elections between 2012 and 2020, but prosecutors charged her only in connection with the 2020 election because the earlier votes fell outside the applicable statute of limitations.

The case comes amid an aggressive federal campaign targeting noncitizen voting. Trump has repeatedly asserted that large numbers of noncitizens participate illegally in U.S. elections and has argued that stricter citizenship verification is necessary to protect election integrity.

Available evidence, however, indicates that noncitizen voting is rare. An Associated Press review published Thursday found that despite extensive federal and state investigations, authorities have identified only a small number of cases compared with the tens of millions of ballots cast in U.S. elections.

A Reuters investigation published in July identified 129 people charged under the federal “voting by aliens” law. None was accused of participating in a conspiracy to change an election’s outcome, supporting a particular candidate in exchange for payment or being paid to cast an illegal ballot. Reuters found that many defendants were lawful permanent residents who said they registered mistakenly or after receiving incorrect information from election workers or government employees.

Trump has also continued to repeat his false claim that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election. Numerous court proceedings, audits and investigations found no evidence of fraud sufficient to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

The administration has nevertheless expanded efforts to identify potential noncitizens on voter rolls and pursue criminal cases. Other defendants have responded by raising the same constitutional argument that succeeded in Cox’s case.

At least four other defendants have challenged the federal statute on similar grounds. In one Florida case, however, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra rejected a constitutional challenge in September, demonstrating that federal judges are already divided over Congress’ authority in this area.

Leibowitz’s ruling does not invalidate the statute nationwide. Other federal judges remain free to reach different conclusions, and the issue could ultimately move through the federal appeals courts and potentially reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Justice Department had not announced Thursday whether it would appeal the dismissal.