WASHINGTON — The League of Women Voters filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, challenging an abrupt policy change that bars nonpartisan organizations from helping new citizens register to vote at naturalization ceremonies.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, argues that USCIS’s August 2025 “voter registration ban” violates both the Administrative Procedure Act and the First Amendment by discriminating against speech promoting voting rights for naturalized citizens.
For decades, the League has been a trusted partner at naturalization ceremonies, registering hundreds of thousands of newly sworn-in Americans to vote. In 2024 alone, League volunteers attended 2,789 naturalization ceremonies and helped 122,141 new citizens register—roughly 8 percent of all people naturalized that year.