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California State Capitol, Sacramento — Photo: site archive / public domain illustration

Accountability|United States

DOJ sues California over vote-by-mail ballots to more than 20,000 likely noncitizens

In United States v. California, No. 2:26-cv-12025 (C.D. Cal., filed 15 October 2026), the Justice Department asks a federal court to stop California from tabulating federal vote-by-mail ballots from people on a federal list of more than 20,000 likely noncitizens until citizenship is verified. The complaint cites 18 U.S.C. § 611 and California’s practice of mailing ballots to every registered voter.

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Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park, Texas — illustrative border landscape; not a worksite named in the rule — Photo: Yinan Chen, public domain

Policy Watch|United States

DHS makes permanent its ban on automatic work-permit renewals while a new card is pending

A final rule published 14 October 2026 (91 FR 65306) adopts without change the October 2025 interim rule that ended automatic extensions of Employment Authorization Documents for people who timely renew in covered categories. Asylum seekers and green-card applicants are the two biggest groups. Renewals filed before 30 October 2025 can still get up to 540 days; those filed on or after that date cannot. The rule is effective on publication.

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California State Capitol, Sacramento — not the Oakland federal courthouse — Photo: Alex Proimos, CC BY 2.0

Accountability|United States

California judge vacates the agency policies behind the $100,000 H-1B payment

On 30 September 2026 Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. vacated the USCIS, CBP, and State Department policies that collected the $100,000 H-1B payment and barred those agencies from enforcing them until they finish notice-and-comment rulemaking and a regulatory-flexibility analysis. The order does not strike Presidential Proclamation 10973 itself. A Massachusetts court had already vacated the same policies; a D.C. court went the other way.

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