The Department of Justice delivered a thumb drive to Los Angeles County containing the names of 20,000 people on California's voter rolls who the federal government says are likely non-citizens.
Posted by Up First from NPR, Checked
- Sources
- 5 support2 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 90%
Up First from NPROct 20, 2026
Multiple reliable sources confirm the DOJ delivered a thumb drive to Los Angeles County listing about 20,000 California voter-roll names that the federal government calls likely noncitizens, and the claim's attribution to the federal government is accurate.
Our two reads of who says this, and how, disagree, so it counts as the post's own claim.
What was said
… Miles, let's start with that LA lawsuit. What's the latest here? The Department of Justice filed an emergency motion just yesterday, asking a federal court to force LA County and the state of California to do what it wants as soon as possible. This all began a about a week ago, last Tuesday, when the DOJ delivered a thumb drive to Los Angeles County that contained the names of 20,000 people all over California who are on the state's voter rolls and who the federal government says are likely non-citizens. Now, I should say there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of that number, but the DOJ wants California to segregate the ballots of everyone on this list and for them not to be counted until those people have been investigated. …
Up First from NPR · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. AP reports the Justice Department's thumb drive contained a list of 20,000 names the federal government says are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots for the Nov. 3 election.[1][4]
Supports. The LA Times and Reuters report the thumb drive was delivered to Los Angeles County officials, with the list of about 20,000 'likely noncitizen' voters from across California.[2][6]
Supports. The Hill reports the DOJ letter, sent Tuesday, came with a USB drive, and the Justice Department's own lawsuit describes the list as over 20,000 names of people it believes are likely noncitizens.[5]
Context. NPR reports that court filings by the state and local officials say some people on the list appear to be U.S.-born and the list is 'unreliable'; this disputes the list's accuracy but not that the federal government characterized it as 'likely' noncitizens.[3][7]
Context. The California Secretary of State and the state government said the federal government has provided no evidence for the claim, which is a dispute over the evidence rather than a contradiction of the claim's attributed content.[3][4]
Sources
7 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 1 primary, 2 tier 2, 1 tier 1, 1 not rated
- 1Trump administration sues California over voter rolls | AP Newsapnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 2Trump threatens California officials with imprisonment over stance on mail ballotsreuters.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 3Trump DOJ makes shocking admissions; taken to task for ...gov.ca.gov · primary source · cited for: context
- 4Trump administration sues California to block counting of alleged noncitizen mail ballotspbs.org · tier 2 · cited for: supports, context
- 5DOJ sues California after pushing state to match voter list with USB ...thehill.com · tier 1 · cited for: supports
- 6Big assertions, sharp exchanges, little clarity define DOJ ...latimes.com · not rated · cited for: supports
- 7Some on DOJ's 20,000 'likely' noncitizen list in California appear to be U.S.-bornnpr.org · tier 2 · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
Related claims
- The U.S. Justice Department delivered a thumb drive containing a list of 20,000 names to Los Angeles County election officials with a 48-hour deadline to investigate them.True
- The federal government sent a thumb drive to the California Secretary of State alleging that 20,000 people registered to vote in California are not citizens.Mixed
- The Trump administration sent a thumb drive to Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan's office containing a list of likely non-citizen registered voters and a sticky note with a password.True
- The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against California claiming there are 20,000 non-citizens on the state's voter rolls.True
- The U.S. Justice Department sued the State of California and Los Angeles County to segregate ballots associated with 20,000 individuals identified as likely non-citizens.True