In a possible blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to charge noncitizens for voting in U.S. elections, a judge has dismissed a federal complaint against a Jamaican national accused of voting illegally, finding that the law under which she was charged was unconstitutional.
Miami-based U.S. District Judge David S. Leibowitz ruled in a 31-page order Thursday that the criminal case against Chelsea Cox, who was charged in October 2025 with a misdemeanor for voting illegally in 2020, should be dismissed. He said a decades-old federal law that prohibits a non-U.S. citizen from voting in a federal election, 18 USC § 611, is unconstitutional.
Under the U.S. Constitution, Leibowitz writes, only states can set voter qualifications, not Congress. The judge said Florida state prosecutors could pursue Cox under state law for illegal voting, not federal law.
The ruling applies only to Cox and appears to be the first time a court has found the law unconstitutional. But it could hamper the Justice Department’s efforts to promote non-citizen voting, a practice that most election experts say is rare but which President Trump has long claimed — without evidence — is common.
Shortly after Leibowitz’s decision, the Justice Department decided to appeal the decision. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling involved a federal law that makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote. It does not cover a separate law prohibiting people from making false claims of citizenship to vote, another tool used by the Justice Department in recent months.
“This is an unusual criminal case. It relies on a forty-year-old federal statute, 18 USC § 611, which prohibits a non-U.S. citizen from voting in a federal election. Until recently, no federal court has faced the following question about this law: Did Congress have the constitutional authority to enact it? This is unusual, in itself,” Leibowitz wrote.
The Biden-appointed judge went on to assert that the Justice Department’s “primary defense of the constitutionality of the law invokes a single Supreme Court case that is very, very weak.”
“So why is the government leading with such a weak hand? Because it is the best hand it can play,” he said. “And why? Because the text, structure and original public meaning of the Constitution show that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to enact this law“.
In a phone conversation Friday evening, Cox’s attorney, Bruce Udolf, said his client was “pleased” with Leibowitz’s decision and added that it was “a huge relief for her.” Udolf said Cox recently underwent a medical procedure and is working with the government to determine the next steps in the case and whether the Trump administration moves to deport him.
In court documents, federal prosecutors accused Cox of overstaying his U.S. tourist visa more than 20 years ago and obtaining a Florida driver’s license by presenting a fraudulent birth certificate from the U.S. Virgin Islands. They alleged she voted in several federal elections starting in 2012, with a vote in the 2020 general election leading to last year’s accusations.
Cox’s lawyers asked the court to dismiss the charges earlier this year, arguing that the law used to charge him “exceeds the authority of Congress and encroaches on a power reserved for the states.”
Federal prosecutors pushed back, arguing that the Constitution “provides that the federal government plays a significant role in overseeing such elections.”
“Whether regulating the conduct of federal elections or preserving a distinct privilege of federal citizenship, the United States certainly has the right to exclude noncitizens from voting in federal elections,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.
To help him solve the problem, Leibowitz asked a conservative legal heavyweight for his analysis: Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration and is one of the nation’s best-known Supreme Court litigators.
In an amicus brief filed over the summer, Clement found that Congress likely “overstepped constitutional bounds in enacting §611.” He noted that while no states currently allow non-citizens to vote in federal elections, there are a number of states allowing the practice.
Clement wrote that “states, not the federal government, determine the qualifications of voters.”
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