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A group of Democratic state legislators on Friday called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate potential violations of federal law and citizenship and voting rights related to Texas leaders’ recent voter roll purges, raids on Latino homes in connection with allegations of election fraud, investigations of voter registration organizations and ongoing surveillance of immigrant advocacy groups.
“Taken together, these actions disproportionately impact Latino and other communities of color, instill fear, and suppress voting,” the 12 Texas senators wrote in the letter. “We urge the Department of Justice to investigate Texas and take all necessary steps to protect the fundamental rights of all Texans and ensure that the freedom of all citizens to vote is not impeded.”
The request for federal intervention marks the latest escalation in what Texas leaders often call efforts to ensure election security.
But those efforts have frequently drawn criticism and concern from civil rights groups and Democrats, who say the state is trying to infringe on Texans’ rights and keep people away from polling places.
A similar petition was filed with the federal government earlier this week by the League of Latin American Citizens, a large Latino civil rights group founded in 1929. Several of the group’s senior members were the targets of search warrants last week in connection with an investigation into allegations of election fraud being conducted by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.
Paxton’s office has said little about the investigation beyond allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting. According to a warrant affidavit obtained by The Texas Tribune, investigators were looking into allegations that political operatives in Frio County improperly collected votes in several local elections.
LULAC leaders denounced the survey as an attempt to intimidate voters.
In their letter calling for a civil rights review, they wrote about Lidia Martinez, an 80-year-old grandmother who had been a member of LULAC for 35 years, who was woken by armed authorities at 6 a.m., questioned for hours, and had her devices, personal calendar, and voter registration materials confiscated.
“These actions reflect a troubling history of voter suppression and intimidation that has long targeted both Black and Latino communities in states like Texas where demographic changes are increasingly shifting the political landscape,” the letter said. “The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy, and LULAC remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting that right for all Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity.”
The Justice Department received LULAC’s letter, a spokesman confirmed Friday, but declined to comment further.
In a letter Friday, Texas Senate Democrats pointed to the attack and a series of other actions targeting LULAC members, writing that they raised “serious concerns” that Paxton and other state leaders may be violating federal civil rights and voting laws.
The group noted that Paxton’s office launched an investigation into voter registration organizations last week after a Fox News host falsely denied claims that immigrants were registering to vote outside a state driver’s license office near Fort Worth.
The claim was disputed by the Department of Public Safety, the local Republican county chair and local elections officials, all of whom said there was no evidence to support it, but Paxton opened an investigation anyway, the lawmakers wrote.
He also said DPS, which manages the state’s driver’s license offices, has since banned groups from registering voters outside of its offices, ending a decades-old practice that the department allowed “without issue.”
“Voter registration groups are working to improve civic engagement in a state with one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the nation,” the letter said. “Many of them are concerned they will be harassed and targeted next.”
Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that legitimate voters may have been among the more than 1 million people removed from the state’s voter rolls and that Texas may have violated federal law that bars states from conducting such routine voter roll maintenance in the 90 days before an election, echoing similar concerns raised this week by a coalition of watchdog and voting rights groups.
The senators concluded by noting ongoing state efforts to target nonprofits and non-governmental organizations that assist immigrants and migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond.
Those investigations began after Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022 directed Paxton’s office to investigate the role those groups played in “planning and facilitating the transportation of illegal immigrants across the border.”
The investigation is part of Texas’ response to record migration that Governor Abbott and other state leaders blame on the “open border policies” of President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
The state has deployed thousands of Texas National Guard and DPS officers to patrol the border and arrest migrants on state charges through a border security initiative called “Operation Lone Star.” Meanwhile, in court, Paxton’s office has repeatedly challenged the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
“The burden of addressing the ongoing border crisis should not be placed on Texas, but the federal government has failed to act to address this issue,” Abbott said in his letter to Paxton, adding that he would “evaluate” the lawsuit. “However, as the situation on the ground continues to evolve, we must remain vigilant in our response to this crisis,” Abbott added.
In response, Paxton’s office has called for the removal of the leaders of at least two organizations that provide humanitarian assistance to migrants and has tried to shut down two others.
A Texas judge has rejected most of Paxton’s proposals, which accused the groups of violating human smuggling laws and, in one instance, accused one group of violating rules governing political involvement for nonprofits.
But Paxton kept fighting.
Perhaps the most high-profile case was when Paxton’s office tried to shut down the migrant shelter network Annunciation House for violating laws banning human trafficking and operating safe houses.
After an El Paso judge dismissed the lawsuit, Paxton appealed directly to the Republican-majority Texas Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. On Friday, the state’s highest civil court scheduled oral arguments on the appeal for mid-January.
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