On Saturday the Associated Press published a piece headlined "Over 40% of names on DOJ list of alleged noncitizens are not on Calif. voter rolls, analysis finds," which pretty quickly became big news.
As is true with many mainstream news stories, while their headline is technically correct, it leaves a lot out and hints at a conclusion that wouldn't be correct. And, now it looks like the analysis and the media attention from it could bite CHIRLA, the State of California, and Los Angeles County in the hindquarters.
So, here's what happened.
On Friday our favorite federal jurist, Judge James Boasberg, ordered the Department of Justice to turn over the list of 20,930 it determined are likely noncitizens on California's voter rolls to illegal alien advocacy group Committee for Humane Immigrant Rights — Los Angeles, known as CHIRLA, in a case filed in September in DC District Court. This is separate from litigation filed by the DOJ against the State of California and Los Angeles County that sought to have those election officials segregate ballots returned from people on that list until their citizenship could be determined.
The AP's headline makes it seem as if a scholarly analysis from a disinterested neutral party made these findings, and social media posts from other lefty journalists intentionally leave out the name CHIRLA. CHIRLA is the group we've reported on extensively that funds a network of anti-ICE doxxing groups and which orchestrated violent protests in Los Angeles and beyond during the summer of 2025.
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA) funds a network of anti-ICE doxxing groups similar to the Signal chats in Minneapolis, trains violent agitators, and has played a key role in anti-ICE violence in California - all funded by taxpayers. Thank you @KatiePavlich for having me on!
— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) April 23, 2026
Boasberg ordered the list be given to CHIRLA so they could compare it to their membership list to see if any of their members were on it, as a way to establish standing. Data scientists from the UCLA Voting Rights Project, a CHIRLA ally and the organization's counsel, then compared that list to the "CHIRLA members and clients naturalized citizen list." I'm not sure if that means they also have a CHIRLA members and clients list of folks who aren't citizens or naturalized citizens, but if they do have such a list, they're smart to not reference or utilize it in litigation.
UCLA Voting Rights Project is hardly nonpartisan. Its Senior Strategy Advisor and Voting Rights Counsel is Xavier Becerra, the former HHS Secretary who's now the Democrat candidate for California governor. Becerra has signed all of the filings in the case. I'm not sure if there's a specific ethical code that violates, but the optics aren't great.
About the findings from the analysis, according to the AP (emphasis mine):
The research found that 8,880 of the names, representing 42% of the entire list, do not correspond to anyone in California’s current voter file. It also found at least 22 are U.S. citizens, and many more may correspond to those of confirmed citizens.
California's current voter file was used in the analysis, something the DOJ doesn't have access to — because Judge Carter ruled back in January that California didn't have to give it to them (in USA vs. Weber). So, how did UCLA VRP gain access to a current voter roll? Well, the experts from UCLA have a contract with California's Secretary of State to analyze voting trends using the California voter file, but it's not clear that its use in litigation is allowed under the contract (RedState has submitted a California Public Records Act request for the contract).
According to sworn declarations filed by the DOJ in the USA vs. State of California case, its list was developed from a version of California's voter roll that was obtained by DHS, and which was current as of August 2025. So, this isn't a credible criticism of the DOJ's list.
Assuming that the UCLA VRP analysis is correct, that means that state and local authorities did their jobs and did at least some cleanup of the voter rolls between August 2025 and now. And, that leaves approximately 60 percent of the people on the list who are currently registered to vote.
Next, they claim that 22 people on the list are U.S. citizens. The exact wording from the experts' report is:
"Based on scientific database matching methodology, I am certain that there [sic] at least 22 entries on the CHIRLA citizen list that fully match to the DHS ineligible list."
What is the evidence that those 22 people are actually U.S. citizens? Has CHIRLA independently verified that the person is a citizen before putting them on their list? We know that there are at least 6,100 people on CHIRLA's citizen list, but don't know precisely how many. If they're only claiming (claiming, without proof) that 22 are U.S. citizens, that's a very small percentage of people affected.
Affected by what exactly, we should ask. The DOJ wasn't asking California officials to throw out the ballots of anyone on the list, or to have all of those names removed from voter rolls. They were looking for additional information to prove that the person in question is indeed a U.S. citizen.
Finally, CHIRLA might have really stepped in it. Since their experts used both the current voter file and CHIRLA's citizen members and clients list to attempt to establish standing for their lawsuit and the injunctive relief requested, the Defendants are entitled to have that information as well, and DHS made a motion to that effect on Sunday. CHIRLA submitted their list ex parte to Boasberg for an in camera examination (meaning, he would review it without sharing with Defendants). DHS is, obviously, opposed to that, and is requesting both the full current voter file used and CHIRLA's citizen member and client list.
Something tells me that Newsom and Bonta aren't going to be too excited about this development.
The bottom line here is that even if it turns out that 40 percent of the people on that list are not on the voter rolls, that's a good thing. Now we need to examine the other 60 percent.
UPDATE 6:10 PM ET, Nov 1, 2026:
The Department of Homeland Security filed a motion Sunday afternoon asking Judge Boasberg to sanction CHIRLA for using DHS' noncitizen list in ways that were clearly forbidden by Boasberg's order, which was only to be used in relation to their standing arguments, and was only to be disseminated to Plaintiff's "counsel of record, their legal assistant, their expert, and his data assistant." Citing the harm done to federal law enforcement efforts by the additional analysis and promotion of those findings in the media (particularly the "40 percent are not on the voter roll" portion), DHS is asking that all portions of the expert report not related to standing of CHIRLA's members be stricken, that Plaintiff's complaint be dismissed, and that Plaintiff and counsel be required to "certify that they have complied with the Court’s restrictions on dissemination and have not promoted their contumacious conduct to representatives of the media and other third parties to cast doubt on the government’s law-enforcement efforts."
Boasberg has ordered Plaintiffs to reply to the motion by 9 AM Eastern time on Monday, November 2.
(This piece was edited post-publication to correct the status of UCLA Voting Rights Project in the subject litigation. They are counsel for CHIRLA, not co-Plaintiffs. We regret the error.)
Editor’s Note: Democrats are fanning the flames and raising the rhetoric by comparing ICE to the Gestapo, fascists, and secret police.
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