Federal Judge Says Congress Has No Power to Stop Noncitizens From Voting

Let’s be clear about what just happened. A Biden-appointed federal judge in Florida decided that Congress doesn’t have the authority to prevent noncitizens from voting in our elections. Read that again, slowly, because the implications are staggering.

Judge David Leibowitz of the Southern District of Florida dismissed federal charges against Chelsea Cox, a Jamaican national who voted illegally in the 2020 presidential election. His reasoning? The Constitution supposedly gives states alone the power to determine voter qualifications, rendering a 1996 federal law criminalizing noncitizen voting unconstitutional. This isn’t just legal gymnastics. It’s an open assault on election integrity wrapped in constitutional language.

The judge’s 31-page ruling arrives at a moment when the Trump administration has been pushing hard to verify citizenship on voter rolls and prosecute those who cast illegal ballots. Democrats and voting-rights groups have fought these efforts tooth and nail, claiming they’re unnecessary because noncitizen voting is already illegal. You know what’s fascinating about that argument? It falls apart the moment an activist judge declares those very laws unconstitutional.

Senator Mike Lee saw through this immediately. The Utah Republican, who co-authored the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act currently stalled in the Senate, didn’t mince words. “This insane ruling will certainly be overturned,” Lee wrote on social media. “But it gives the game away: Democrats pretend we don’t need the SAVE Act because non-citizen voting is already illegal while activist judges try to destroy laws banning non-citizens from voting!”

He’s right. The contradiction is glaring. Democrats insist additional safeguards are redundant fearmongering because existing laws already prohibit illegal voting. Then a federal judge comes along and guts those existing laws. Which is it? Either the laws matter or they don’t.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow with Advancing American Freedom, explained why Leibowitz’s reasoning crumbles under scrutiny. Yes, states have constitutional authority to set voter qualifications for citizens. But the judge conveniently ignores Article I, Section 8, which grants Congress complete authority over naturalization. Congress decides how noncitizens enter this country and what activities they can engage in once here. That authority absolutely extends to barring aliens from participating in our democratic process.

Think about the precedent this sets if it stands. If Congress lacks the power to protect federal elections from noncitizen interference, what’s left of election integrity? States could theoretically allow anyone to vote in presidential races, Senate contests, House elections. The federal government would be powerless to stop it. That’s not federalism. That’s chaos masquerading as constitutional interpretation.

The Trump administration’s focus on election integrity stems from legitimate concerns about the 2020 election. Critics dismiss these as conspiracy theories, but millions of Americans have serious questions about what happened. Those questions don’t get answered by judges dismantling the few protections we have against illegal voting. They get answered by transparency, verification, and enforcement of existing law.

Leibowitz cited the Constitutional Convention debates from 1787 to support his position. But those debates occurred in an era when the Founders envisioned citizen participation in government as a sacred trust, not an entitlement extended to anyone physically present in the country. The historical context he claims to champion actually undermines his conclusion.

This ruling won’t survive appeal. Von Spakovsky predicts the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will squash it, and he’s almost certainly correct. The legal reasoning is too flawed, the implications too dangerous. But the damage is already done in terms of public perception. Activist judges willing to overturn settled law for ideological purposes erode confidence in the judiciary itself.

Democrats have spent years insisting that concerns about noncitizen voting are overblown. They’ve blocked common-sense reforms like requiring proof of citizenship to register. They’ve sued states trying to clean up their voter rolls. And now we see why. They don’t want these safeguards because they benefit from the chaos and confusion surrounding election administration.

The SAVE Act remains stuck in the Senate with midterm elections approaching. It won’t pass before voters head to the polls again. That’s by design. Politicians who benefit from loose election standards have no incentive to tighten them. Meanwhile, judges appointed by those same politicians issue rulings that further weaken what protections remain.

This is what happens when judicial activism meets partisan politics. A judge decides the outcome he wants, then reverse-engineers constitutional justification to support it. Leibowitz’s ruling reads less like sober legal analysis and more like a policy paper from a voting-rights advocacy group.

The Constitution isn’t a blank canvas for judges to paint their preferred vision of democracy. It’s a framework with specific grants of power to different branches and levels of government. Congress has clear authority over naturalization and immigration. That authority includes preventing noncitizens from diluting the votes of actual citizens. No amount of creative interpretation changes that reality.

Americans deserve elections they can trust. That requires clear rules, consistent enforcement, and judges who respect constitutional boundaries rather than stretching them to achieve political ends. This ruling fails on all counts. Good thing appeals courts exist.