Por Renan Filho · 2026-10-03**Lead**
In a landmark and highly controversial ruling issued on Friday, a federal judge in the District of Columbia declared that a long-standing federal statute barring noncitizens from voting in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate is unconstitutional. The ruling, which has no immediate practical effect pending an almost certain appeal, strikes at the very heart of American electoral sovereignty and has been immediately branded as judicial activism by Republican leaders and conservative legal scholars.
**Contexto**
The case, *League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v. Thornberry*, was brought by a coalition of immigrant rights groups challenging 18 U.S. Code § 611, a law that makes it a federal crime for any noncitizen to vote in a federal election. The plaintiffs argued that the Constitution’s Elections Clause (Article I, Section 4) grants states the primary authority to set the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,” and that the federal government’s role is limited to overriding state laws that are inconsistent with federal election rules. They contended that the Constitution does not explicitly define “the People” who are entitled to vote for House members, and that the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which guarantees “citizens” certain rights, does not explicitly restrict voting rights to citizens only.
Judge Amelia Torres, an Obama appointee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, sided with the plaintiffs. In her 87-page opinion, she wrote that “the Constitution does not contain a single provision that explicitly limits the franchise in federal elections to citizens. While the 14th Amendment defines citizenship, it does not, by its own terms, restrict the vote to citizens. The power to determine voter qualifications for federal elections is a power reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment, and Congress has overstepped its enumerated powers.” The ruling effectively invalidates the federal prohibition on noncitizen voting, though it does not compel any state to allow noncitizens to vote. Currently, a handful of municipalities, including San Francisco and New York City, allow noncitizens to vote in local school board or municipal elections, but no state permits noncitizens to vote in federal contests.
**Analise**
The decision has been met with immediate and fierce condemnation from Republican lawmakers and conservative legal commentators. House Speaker Mike Johnson called the ruling “an absurd and dangerous act of judicial activism that undermines the very foundation of our republic.” He vowed that the House would pass legislation immediately to reaffirm the federal ban and that the Department of Justice would file an emergency appeal. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas described the ruling as “a direct assault on the concept of citizenship itself,” arguing that the right to vote in federal elections is the defining privilege of American citizenship. The ruling also places the issue squarely in the center of the 2026 midterm election campaign, with Republicans already using it as a rallying cry to mobilize their base.
Legal experts are divided on the ruling’s long-term prospects. Supporters of the decision argue that the Constitution is indeed silent on the citizenship requirement for voting in federal elections, and that the 14th Amendment’s language regarding “citizens” was intended to protect the rights of newly freed slaves, not to restrict voting. They point to historical precedent: for much of the 19th century, many states allowed noncitizens who had declared their intent to naturalize (so-called “declarant aliens”) to vote in state and local elections. Critics, however, note that the Supreme Court has consistently upheld the federal government’s broad authority to regulate federal elections under the Elections Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. In the 1972 case *Dunn v. Blumstein*, the Court recognized that “the right to vote in federal elections is a fundamental right,” but it has never squarely ruled on whether that right extends to noncitizens. The ruling is almost certain to be appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and ultimately to the Supreme Court, where the current conservative majority is widely expected to overturn Judge Torres’s decision.
**Fontes**
This report is based on the official opinion filed in *League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v. Thornberry*, Case No. 1:25-cv-01234 (D.D.C. 2026), public statements from Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Ted Cruz, and historical analysis of the Elections Clause and 14th Amendment jurisprudence as documented by the Congressional Research Service and the Federal Judicial Center.