Oh, Hell No: Judge Rules Federal Noncitizen Voting Ban Unconstitutional

The U.S. judicial system has finally reached peak absurdity. A Biden-appointed judge has ruled that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to make noncitizen voting in federal elections a federal crime — even when the noncitizen allegedly knew she was ineligible to vote.

Judge David Leibowitz, a Miami-based district judge, didn’t just dismiss a criminal case against a Jamaican national accused of illegally voting in the 2020 election.

He had the audacity to rule that the federal law used to prosecute her is unconstitutional.

That’s not a joke. There’s no punch line. Americans are not laughing.

There was strong pushback against the bizarre ruling almost immediately.

Just because states can “regulate voting” under the Constitution does not mean that federal government cannot prosecute illegal aliens who vote illegally. Enforcing criminal statutes is not “regulation.” Section 4 of US Constitution Article I states that the “Times, Places, and…

— William Mitchelson (@WRMitchelson) October 2, 2026

Blow to Trump? It seems to me that allowing the citizens of a foreign country to vote in our elections is a blow to all of us! Maybe we should mail a few Ballots to Argentina, Hungry, Poland, and Israel

— MJBluster (@MJBluster) October 2, 2026

Does this mean that anyone
can come to the USA and
vote in American elections?
“Election tourism”?

— Far Right » Far Wrong (@zzzidar) October 2, 2026

We have to start impeaching these judges. This ruling is absolutely ridiculous and needs to be appealed immediately. Every single illegal has to removed from this nation. Not one of them is allowed to stay. This ruling once again shows where the left is on this issue. Ruling that…

— Jbob (@Jbob198X) October 2, 2026

Let’s make this crystal clear from the outset: Federal law currently prohibits noncitizens from voting for president, vice president, U.S. Senate, or House.

That’s what 18 U.S.C. § 611 says. The statute declares it “unlawful for any alien to vote” in an election for federal office, subject to narrow exceptions. Violations can carry up to one year in prison.

What U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz did Thursday was rule that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to enact that prohibition, at least as applied in the prosecution before him.

The decision applies directly only to Cox’s case and does not bind other federal judges around the country — not that other activist judges won’t attempt to use this ruling as a pretext to dismiss other such prosecutions. 

Reuters reported that it appears to be the first federal court ruling to find the 1996 statute unconstitutional.

According to federal court filings cited by Reuters, Cox entered the United States from Jamaica as a tourist in 1999 and remained after her visa expired the following year. She allegedly used a fraudulent U.S. Virgin Islands birth certificate to obtain a Florida driver’s license and then used those documents to register to vote in 2012.

Records cited in the case showed that Cox voted in federal elections between 2012 and 2020. Prosecutors charged her in October 2025 over her 2020 vote because the earlier elections fell outside the applicable statute of limitations.

Leibowitz, who was nominated to the federal bench by former President Joe Biden, didn’t rule that Florida must allow Cox or other noncitizens to vote. Quite the opposite. 

“Can the State of Florida prohibit and punish the exact conduct Defendant Cox allegedly engaged in here?” Leibowitz wrote. “Florida can and does.”

His ruling instead rests on the division of power between Congress and the states. Leibowitz concluded that the Constitution gives states authority to determine voter qualifications and that Congress therefore exceeded its power when it made voting by noncitizens in federal elections a federal crime. 

Federal prosecutors countered that Congress has authority over issues involving immigration, foreign affairs, and foreign interference in American elections.

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

The ruling creates a potentially significant problem for the Trump administration’s stepped-up enforcement of the statute.

The Justice Department has charged at least 60 people with noncitizen voting since Trump returned to office in January 2025, according to Reuters, with roughly 45 cases still pending nationwide. At least four other defendants have reportedly raised constitutional challenges similar to Cox’s.

Those judges aren’t required to follow Leibowitz. But defense attorneys now have a federal ruling they can cite while making the same argument elsewhere, making an appeal of the Cox decision particularly important for the Justice Department.

There is another distinction worth keeping straight amid the inevitable political fight over the decision. Some jurisdictions permit noncitizens to participate in certain local elections. That is not the same thing as voting for president or Congress.

Section 611 specifically addresses elections held for federal offices. It contains an exception for certain elections that simultaneously include local contests in which noncitizen voting is authorized, but only when the voting is structured so that the noncitizen cannot vote for the federal candidates.

Federal immigration law separately provides that a noncitizen who unlawfully votes in violation of federal, state or local law can be deportable, again subject to a narrow exception involving people who reasonably believed themselves to be U.S. citizens under specified circumstances.

So Thursday’s decision doesn’t suddenly make noncitizen voting generally legal across the country. It dismisses one federal prosecution after one judge concluded that Congress didn’t have constitutional authority to criminalize the conduct through Section 611. Florida’s own citizenship requirement remains in place, and Leibowitz expressly acknowledged the state’s authority to enforce it.

The broader question is now whether his constitutional reasoning survives appeal. Congress enacted the federal prohibition in 1996, and the statute remains on the books today. The official U.S. Code continues to state plainly that voting by an alien in an election for federal office is unlawful.

It is increasingly difficult to escape the conclusion that Democrats are untroubled by noncitizens voting in U.S. elections. If that isn’t the case, why fight the SAVE Act, resist attempts to clean up the states’ dirty voter rolls, and sign off on cockamamie federal court rulings such as these?

Editor’s Note: Republicans are fighting for election integrity by requiring proper identification to vote. It’s common sense, yet Democrats are spreading lies about the impact of such a measure. 

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