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Rights Groups Urge Court to Prevent Trump DOJ From Misusing Voter Files Seized in Georgia
“We have very serious concerns about what the Trump administration could do with the voting records of thousands of people from Fulton County."
Feb 16, 2026
Civil rights organizations are demanding that a federal court place restrictions on the Trump administration's use of materials seizedduring its unprecedented raid on an elections center in Fulton County, Georgia in January.
Five groups—the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP, the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, the Atlanta branch of the NAACP, and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda—on Monday asked the Atlanta Division of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to bar the administration from using any materials seized from the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations center for anything other than the criminal investigation outlined in the search warrant used to justify the raid.
Among other things, this would bar the administration from using materials taken from the center for voter roll maintenance, election administration, or the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The groups argued the constraints are necessary to enforce "statutory protections for the right to vote, voter privacy, and ballot secrecy, which are fundamentally critical given the unprecedented assaults on the administration of elections."
Additionally, the groups asked the court to force the administration to create and publicly disclose a full inventory of materials seized from the voting center, as well as a catalog of all people who have accessed the materials during the investigation.
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, claimed that the seizure of materials related to the 2020 presidential election was a continuation of Trump's years-long quest to overturn his loss to former President Joe Biden.
Hewitt also warned the raid on the Fulton County elections center should be seen as part of an assault on voter rights throughout the US.
"These actions are part of a larger pattern," he explained. "We are witnessing a broad-scale assault on fair elections on many fronts, from going after voting records and squeezing out Black voters through redistricting, to improperly purging voters from the rolls and making it harder for everyone to vote. Some have called what we are witnessing a ‘soft coup’. Whatever we call it, we must all understand that our democracy is at risk."
Robert Weiner, director of the voting rights project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the seizure of materials raised major privacy issues for Fulton County voters.
"We have very serious concerns about what the Trump administration could do with the voting records of thousands of people from Fulton County," said Weiner. "We are talking about sensitive private information. After the DOGE disaster, voters need to be confident their private information is in safe and trustworthy hands."
The FBI last month executed a search warrant at the Fulton County election center that allowed federal agents to seize 2020 election ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data, and voter rolls.
Shortly after the raid, Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory predicted that this kind of operation would likely be spreading to other counties and states.
“Fulton County is right now the target," Ivory said. "But it is coming to a place near you. This is the beginning of the chaos of 2026 that is about to ensue."
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Backed by Billions in New Funds, Trump's ICE Works to Deputize Local Police Nationwide
"Federal incentives to target and profile will harm immigrant communities and have spillover effects on other communities already targeted by local law enforcement impacting immigrants and citizens alike."
Feb 16, 2026
The US Department of Homeland Security is partially shut down due to a congressional funding fight, but armed with an extra $75 billion from last year's Republican budget package, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not only expanding its concentration camp network but also working to deputize thousands of police officers across the country.
Two decades ago, Congress authorized the US attorney general to enter into agreements allowing local and state law enforcement officers to carry out certain immigration enforcement actions under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. A brief published Monday by the policy group FWD.us details how ICE is pumping money into "an old, and once rejected, idea—the 287(g) Task Force Model."
As NBC News—which first reported on the brief—noted Monday, the model "was discontinued by the Obama administration in 2012 in part over accusations of racial profiling by local officers in Maricopa County, Arizona, and Alamance County, North Carolina."
Pointing to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio as an example, FWD.us president Todd Schulte said in a statement that "over a decade ago, we saw how deputizing local law enforcement to do immigration enforcement could result in disaster."
"Federal incentives to target and profile will harm immigrant communities and have spillover effects on other communities already targeted by local law enforcement impacting immigrants and citizens alike," Schulte warned.
Despite such warnings, the model has been embraced by both of President Donald Trump's administrations. During the Republican's first term—partly defined by his widely denounced forced separation of immigrant families at the southern border—there were approximately 150 total 287(g) agreements across the United States, according to FWD.us.
Trump lost reelection in 2020, and as he returned to power early last year, there were only about 135 agreements still in effect. The president had campaigned on a promise of mass deportations, and he's since tried to deliver on it by dispatching thousands of DHS agents to various US communities. Some recently targeted cities, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, officially prohibit local police from collaborating with ICE on civil enforcement, but FWD.us found 1,372 agreements across 1,169 agencies as of late January.
BREAKING: "Agreements between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement that allow officers to make federal immigration arrests have increased by 950% in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to a new analysis of ICE data."
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— Attorney Kathleen Martinez (@attorneymartinez.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 11:06 AM
The publication explains that "Task Force Model sign-ups began to climb sharply" after the second Trump administration announced a new funding model for such agreements last September. ICE previously paid for training and information technology infrastructure, but now, it will "pay for the full salary and benefits of any trained and certified officer, one-time start-up costs to the agency, overtime, and bonuses based on 'performance,' i.e. how many immigration arrests officers make."
"This comes despite the Immigration and Nationality Act that lays out 287(g) powers stating that any designated officer 'may carry out such function at the expense of the state or political subdivision,'" the document points out.
According to the brief:
When announcing the new funding model in September 2025, ICE reported that 8,501 local law enforcement officers had already been trained under the Task Force Model—or approximately 18 per agency—and that 2,000 more were being trained. Since then, an additional 296 agencies have signed up for the Task Force Model. If they send similar numbers of officers for training, this would mean that between 13,800 and 15,800 police officers and deputies across the country are now deputized by ICE and trained to target immigrants, or anyone who they think looks like an immigrant. This is an even larger increase in force than the 12,000 new officers and agents hired directly by ICE since Trump's second inauguration.
"Based on current participation," the document warns, "we estimate ICE could distribute between $1.4 billion and $2 billion to local and state law enforcement agencies in 2026, adding thousands of additional law enforcement officers with immigration enforcement powers and putting communities throughout the country at increased risk of criminalization and incarceration."
It adds that "if the current pace of sign-ups continues for an additional year, 2027 funding could grow to a total of $3.6 billion in 2027, funding 31,000 law enforcement officers deputized by ICE across the country."
Felicity Rose, vice president of criminal justice research and policy at FWD.us, said that "this would be by far the largest infusion of federal funding into local law enforcement since the 1990s COPS grants, which increased low-level arrests while having no significant impact on crime."
"Research on the 287(g) Task Force Model showed it too caused massive harm to communities while failing to reduce crime," she stressed. "This program is a confluence of two bad ideas that should be left in the past where they belong."
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'We Are Coming for Power for Working People': Ocasio-Cortez Talks US Politics in Germany
"You are being screwed, and that story is not a cultural one but a class one."
Feb 16, 2026
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday fleshed out her vision for progressive politics in the US during a town hall-style event at
Technical University Berlin in Germany.
While discussing the domestic political situation in the US, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) argued that enormous disparities in wealth inequality were leaving voters open to appeals from far-right movements that scapegoat immigrants and minorities for problems being caused by unchecked corporate power.
"When you have economic stagnation for the working class, especially in an environment where GDP is growing, that is the stuff of populist movements," said Ocasio-Cortez. "The choice is what direction those populist movements can go... One direction is, 'We are going to blame this on the vulnerable, on immigrants, on people of different gender identities."
The Rosetta Stone for AOC’s foreign policy right here: “...economic elites are taking the lion's share of growth for themselves and leaving crumbs for the working class...this is an injustice, you are being screwed, and that story is not a cultural one but a class one” pic.twitter.com/gK7kyVbONb
— Van Jackson (@RealVanJackson) February 15, 2026
The New York Democrat then argued that right-wing populism "is all done as a distraction from the truth, which is that economic elites have taken the lion's share of growth for themselves" while "leaving crumbs for the working class."
"The alternative is a populist movement that tells the truth," she continued. "That says, 'This is an injustice, you are being screwed over, and that story is not a cultural one, but a class one.'"
Elsewhere in the talk, Ocasio-Cortez downplayed speculation about potentially running for higher office in 2028, instead outlining her goals for reshaping the political environment.
"My ambition has always been about conditions," she said. "I remain ambitious, but my ambitions are in changing our political environment. That's why, when I was first elected, my ambition was to change the Democratic Party, and to make it more economically populist and responsive to working-class Americans... Frankly, I think the ambitions of a progressive movement go so far beyond an elected office. We are coming for power for working people."
Ocasio-Cortez also gave a shoutout to the resistance to federal immigration enforcement operations as an example of building community solidarity in the face of an external threat.
"Every one of us can be sand in the gears of an injustice," she said. "I think about how all the people in Minneapolis refused to let [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers use the bathroom in their establishments. I mean, it’s a small thing, but it matters! It matters... We create a culture of protection of one another, a culture of solidarity with one another, and it's rebellious."
AOC: “There are more of us than them. Every one of us can be sand in the gears of injustice. All the people in Minneapolis refused to let ICE officers use the bathroom in their establishments. It’s a small thing, but it matters! We create a culture of protection of one another” pic.twitter.com/3y9IpRiS8m
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) February 15, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez's remarks on Sunday came after she participated in a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference on Friday where she argued that "a working-class-centered politics" was the key to defeat "the scourges of authoritarianism, which provide political siren calls to allure people into finding scapegoats to blame for rising economic inequality, both domestically and globally."
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