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MINNEAPOLIS — The day after Rep. Ilhan Omar's first public appearance since the raid on her home, Fox News Digital was given a tour of the mall where she reemerged in her home state.

The footage provides a glimpse inside an enclave within America that is dominated by Somalis and Somali culture, and a gives a peak into the community that Omar represents in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The mall isn't just a place for people to buy clothing, food and receive services, but is a "community hub" of mostly women entrepreneurs, as described by a female shop owner.

"We're here today are Karmel Mall with brother Basim, to kind of browse through this amazing community, corridor that is full of amazing women," she told Fox News Digital, referring the Karmel Mall of Somalia's owner, Basim Sabri, who provided the tour.

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Sabri, a Gaza-born immigrant, came to the United States to study in Minneapolis. During that time, he became a real-estate investor and steadily grew his business in the years to come. Now, he's a local titan of industry and owns a vast real estate empire, which includes the mall and several apartment complexes in the area that house Somalis. He has political ties at all levels of local and state politics, and is friends with Omar. He also knew the Somali-born congresswoman's father.

Fox News Digital interviewed him separately, days before the official tour of the mall.

For most inside, English is the mall's second language. It's packed with stores offering electronic SIM cards to call overseas, foreign money exchanges and travel agencies arranging trips to the Middle East and East Africa. Vendors also sell gold, fragrances and traditional Somali fashion items, mostly for women.

There are Somali barber shops, cafes, traditional Somali food vendors and henna tattoo shops. Sabri gave conflicting figures on the exact number of stores, once saying 900, and later 750.

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It sports a food court with a giant Somali flag painted on the ceiling, as well as Somali, Palestinian and American flags hanging from the walls. Many politicians use that space for press conferences, Sabri explained.

It's also where Omar ate lunch with friends, supporters and state Attorney General Keith Ellison during Fox News Digital's foray into the mall when the lawmaker reemerged after casting an early ballot in her own reelection.

Karmel Mall also has an Islamic weekend school for children, where they're taught the Quran and engage in recreational activities.

While the mall isn't strictly for Somalis, few outside the Somali community were present when Fox News Digital toured. Fox News Digital was initially bucked by security upon attempting to enter and film inside the mall without Sabri's permission.

The owner once banned Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey from the premises in February 2024 after he vetoed an Israel-Gaza ceasefire resolution passed by the City Council.

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"It is kind of an incubator setting where many businesses start in here, and then many succeed and grow and move somewhere else, to a bigger space," Sabri explained to Fox News Digital.

He claims that the mall is a space where Somalis learn to integrate into the community.

"You can see [the] Somalis not only integrating in the community, but also prospering," he said. "Somalis are very smart business individuals."

But the mall's very name — the Karmel Mall of Somalia — along with the overwhelmingly Somali culture inside, raise questions about whether the group is actually assimilating into American society.

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Steven Camerota is the director for research at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). He pointed Fox News Digital to a CIS report published in December of last year that describes Somalis as a "struggling group."

The report shows that more than half of children who live in the homes of Somali-born immigrants in Minnesota live in poverty, compared to only 8% of children living in homes of native-born Minnesotans. Among Somali-born immigrants who have lived in the United States for more than a decade, half cannot speak English "very well." The report says that 89% of Somali households receive some form of welfare, and 39% don't have high school diplomas, compared to only 8% of the native population.

Camerota argued that across America, assimilation among various foreign-born groups, including Somalis, has dropped, though today's immigration numbers are about the same they were during America's first great wave of immigration.

In the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries, immigrations from across the world flooded the United States. During that time, immigrants comprised about 15% of America's population, on par with todays numbers. After World War I, restrictive immigration policies that lasted until the 1960s took effect. In more recent history, immigration has ramped up to the tune of one million legal immigrants per year entering the United States, Camerota said.

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"So, there are three big things about modern immigration that you can argue greatly hinder assimilation, and it has much less to do with the immigrants, and a lot more to do with just modern conditions," he told Fox News Digital. "The first is technology. You can fly home and visit home for the holidays if you want. In a way that just wouldn't have been possible in 1900, and in terms of costs."

Camerota noted that the internet allows people access to constant news from home, and the constant ability to stay connected with family and friends via phone and video calls.

"So this technology, travel and communications is fundamentally different today than in the past. And that likely means that the connection with the home country doesn't become as attenuated as quickly as it would have," he said.

The attitudes of those who Camerota characterizes as "elites," in academia, government, media and other institutions has also changed. He said there are now dueling theories about the what exactly America is that could be contributing to a lack of assimilation.

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"So is America essentially a magnificent historical project of democracy and equality and republican government, or is it essentially — most of that's a sham and it's really a racist, sexist, homophobic [and] classist society?" he said. "The immigrants are arriving in a country in many ways that received both those messages, and so this elite attitude which permeates down is just so different than the world of the last great wave of immigration and almost certainly matters a great deal."

Essentially, Camerota argued, if immigrants adopt the narrative that America is a fundamentally flawed nation, there is little reason for them to assimilate.

"The word assimilation itself is seen as a bad word in many circles. The idea that immigrants are supposed to shed their their old culture and become American is now seen as a kind of for some — I don't want to say universally for all — but some fraction of it at least, as an undesirable Anglo conformity," he continued.

"We are living in a country that can't really agree itself about its own history, let alone agree on what it wants from the immigrants."

The third important fact to assimilation in Camerota's mind is the sheer number of immigrants coming to the United States.

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"The last point is numbers," he said. "So, we're at a record high now, right? 15% of the population is foreign born. It's matched the levels of between 1890 and 1910 ... during the last peak of the last great wave. But the one question then has to be asked, what happened then?"

He said the immigration restriction of the mid 20th-century necessarily resulted in assimilation, as immigrants could not endlessly build enclaves for more and more foreign-born residents, as is happening today.

"I think it's pretty clear it likely played a very big role in facilitating the assimilation of the immigrants," he said, suggesting that a similar immigration restriction could have the same effect if implemented now.

Sabri has faced troubles of his own.

In 2005, he was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for bribing a local Minneapolis public official. He told Fox News Digital in the first interview about his time in prison, which included a brief stay at the infamous Federal Correctional Institution, Leavenworth in Kansas, in colorful detail.

In that interview, he also insisted that the mall is for everyone.

"But my experience is that Somalis are very, very intelligent and extremely hard-working people," he said.

"So, I would invite anybody to come into the mall, and know that there are many people doing a great job and making a good living, and learning the American dream, and doing business, and opening businesses that eventually tend to be very successful for them."

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With just two days until Americans head to the polls, voters from across the country revealed that their midterm decisions may be driven more by frustration with what they oppose than by support for what they believe in.

"The Democrats down the line because Trump is an idiot," one voter from Colorado said when asked by Fox News Digital how he plans to vote.

"I'm a Democratic voter," Lucy from Washington, D.C., said. "I am sick of the administration. I have been very upset about what's happening to this city and this area and this country — all the lies."

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Despite President Donald Trump not appearing on the midterm ballot, most Democrat voters whom Fox News Digital spoke with cited his administration as their driving factor to vote for Democrats for this year’s congressional slate.

"Democrats," Mark from Utah said about who he is voting for. "Because of corruption, cost of living, democracy. It doesn't seem like this administration cares about the Constitution. The president's enriching himself and the rest of the country is getting more poor."

Control of Congress is at stake in the midterms, with Democrats seeking to gain enough seats to challenge Trump's legislative agenda during the remainder of his presidency.

One Democrat voter even acknowledged his agreement with some Republican policies, but noted his opposition to Trump outweighs his right-leaning stances.

"I generally vote Democrat," Jeremy from New York said.

He continued, "It's funny because I agree with a lot of the Republican stances. I just feel like when you get behind someone who's unfortunately in charge, like the man that is, then this is something I can't really support."

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Another voter said he voted for Trump and Republicans in previous elections, but has decided to vote Democrat in the upcoming election because he claims there was a lack of follow-through by the Trump administration.

"After six years of Make America Great Again, we're not great again," one voter from Virginia said. "So I'm switching."

Opposition wasn't limited to Democrat voters. The few voters who told Fox News Digital they planned to vote Republican also expressed concerns about the opposing party as major factors in their midterm decisions.

"I'm voting Republican," Yago said. "The reason why is because I do not want to see socialism in this country. Socialism did nothing but destroy everything."

"First off, just social policies," John from Illinois said about what’s motivating him to vote red. "I think that over the past couple of years, we've seen what the Democrats promote, as far as social policies go, and family policy, gender policy, all that stuff. I think particularly abortion, too."

Other voters pointed to specific issues driving their decisions, including immigration enforcement, foreign policy, gun rights and the economy.

"My main concern is probably just everything that's happening with ICE and DHS," Emily from Texas, who plans to vote Democrat, said.

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Another voter who pledged to support Republicans said his decision "comes down to gun control."

"The Second Amendment protects your First [Amendment]," Nelson from Washington, D.C., said.

"When it comes to foreign policy with helping out Israel and not giving any help to Palestine," Kamil from Washington said, "That's what's driving me to vote for the Democrats instead."

For some Americans, the midterm elections are shaping up to be less about enthusiasm for either political party and more about opposition to the direction they believe the country is heading.

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Seattle's effort to protect renters allegedly helped destroy a $39 million investment meant to provide affordable housing, sending a 254-unit apartment complex that served lower-income residents into receivership. Now, its owners have scored a court victory in a battle that could influence similar fights in Philadelphia and other Democrat-led cities.

The Washington Court of Appeals ruled Monday that GRE Downtowner LLC, the company behind Seattle's 254-unit Addison on Fourth affordable housing development, can proceed with claims that the city's sweeping rental regulations amounted to an unconstitutional taking of private property. GRE alleges the restrictions, including an ordinance requiring landlords to accommodate certain additional occupants without their consent, sent rent collections plummeting, triggered millions in losses and ultimately made the once-viable affordable housing investment financially unsustainable.

The development operated under the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, which offers tax incentives to private investors in exchange for providing rent-restricted apartments to lower-income residents. Sean Flynn, executive director of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, explained that while such developments typically generate relatively modest profits, the federal tax credits make them financially attractive to investors, helping bring private money into affordable housing projects that might otherwise struggle to get built.

Flynn, who is working with GRE Downtowner in its case against the City of Seattle, told Fox News Digital that the city's successive ordinances targeting landlords ultimately created a "toxic cocktail of legislation" that took a functioning affordable housing property and "destroyed it."

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According to court filings, GRE's investment initially proved financially viable, with the property generating positive cash flow from 2015 through 2018. But as Seattle enacted a series of ordinances restricting criminal-background checks, expanding tenants' ability to bring additional occupants into their apartments, limiting certain evictions and requiring relocation assistance following qualifying rent increases, GRE alleges its rent collections collapsed from 93.9% in 2018 to just 44.1% in 2023, contributing to nearly $5.8 million in cumulative operating losses.

The financial deterioration ultimately culminated in a federal judge appointing a receiver in January 2026 to take control of the property following a mortgage default.

"The policies they're passing are detrimental to the folks they're actually trying to help," Flynn warned, arguing that excessive restrictions on landlords ultimately hurt renters by discouraging housing investment. "No one will invest to build more housing if they believe that the government can come in and effectuate a taking – to take the property out from under them – and they have no legal recourse."

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"What this decision says is government, you can regulate, you can regulate to your heart's content," Flynn added. "But if your regulations amount to the point of which you take my real property, I'm allowed to sue you for it."

Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor specializing in constitutional law and property rights, told Fox News Digital that the ruling is more consequential than a routine procedural decision but cautioned against overstating its broader impact.

"This is only moderately significant, but it's more significant than just a routine legal decision that only affects the people immediately involved," Somin said, explaining that courts in other states could consider the Washington ruling when weighing similar constitutional challenges. He also said the case could theoretically go to the U.S. Supreme Court, but said that was fairly unlikely.

Seattle is hardly alone in imposing sweeping restrictions on landlords. San Francisco has long enforced rent controls and limits on evictions, and New York City expanded eviction protections in 2024 under the state's Good Cause Eviction law, limiting landlords' ability to remove certain tenants or refuse lease renewals while allowing renters to challenge excessive rent increases. Portland, Oregon, limits landlords' use of criminal histories when screening prospective tenants and requires relocation payments following certain rent increases of 10% or more. Philadelphia has also adopted restrictions involving criminal-history screening. These policies reflect a broader push to strengthen renters' rights in major Democrat-led cities, even as property owners raise concerns about the consequences of increasingly restrictive housing regulations.

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Flynn warned that the consequences of Seattle's housing policies extend well beyond Addison on Fourth, arguing that mounting restrictions have driven developers and smaller landlords away from Seattle — a city once bustling with residential construction.

"Once upon a time in Seattle, you could stand from my office and you could see crane after crane after crane building housing," Flynn said. "They're gone, and they're not coming back."

Flynn argued that the resulting decline in investment ultimately hurts ordinary renters, leaving them with fewer housing options and higher costs.

"When you take the investment incentive out of providing a product, you get worse products at a higher cost," he said. "Investors listen and they vote with their feet. And as a result, there's less housing and the housing that is available is of lesser quality."

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GRE's lawsuit seeks compensation under a legal principle known as inverse condemnation, which allows property owners to pursue payment when they believe government actions have effectively taken or damaged their property without providing just compensation. GRE argues that Seattle's ordinances, individually and collectively, went so far in restricting its property rights that the city should be held financially responsible for the resulting losses.

The Seattle City Attorney's Office told Fox News Digital that officials are reviewing the appellate ruling and weighing their next steps. "We haven't made a decision on an appeal yet," Chief of Staff Dan Nolte said in an email Thursday.

"I believe the plaintiffs in this case deserve to win at least on that roommate provision," Somin told Fox News Digital, referring to Seattle's restrictions on landlords' ability to exclude certain additional occupants from rental properties.

Somin pointed to the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid , which ruled that a California regulation requiring agricultural employers to allow union organizers onto their private property constituted a physical taking under the Fifth Amendment. He argued that Seattle's Roommate Ordinance raises a similar constitutional question because it requires landlords to accommodate additional occupants with whom they never entered into a rental agreement.

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"I think the strongest per se argument is simply an argument against this provision of the ordinance, which says they have to take these people who they never made any contract with at all, never screened, and so on," Somin said. "The additional requirement to let them on their land is going beyond what's in the contract, and the same thing you know would apply here in the Seattle case."

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President Donald Trump' s push to oust Rep. Ilhan Omar amid allegations of immigration fraud could trigger a constitutional fight, with legal experts telling Fox News Digital that a landmark Supreme Court case involving another entrenched Democrat may not stand in Republicans’ way.

Federal investigators are examining whether the Minneapolis Democrat improperly obtained U.S. citizenship through allegedly fraudulent immigration paperwork involving her late father. Omar has denied wrongdoing, and no finding that she lacks U.S. citizenship has been established.

Experts said Omar may not have the protections established in the landmark case involving House chairman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., D-N.Y., in which the Supreme Court blocked an effort to exclude him from Congress.

Powell faced allegations of misusing congressional funds and improperly paying his wife from the congressional payroll. Despite his reelection, the House voted to exclude him in 1967, but the Supreme Court later ruled that Congress could not refuse to seat a duly elected member who satisfied the Constitution's qualifications.

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The first potential route for Republicans would be to challenge whether Omar meets the Constitution's citizenship requirement. Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and constitutional scholar Cully Stimson told Fox News Digital that the Powell ruling does not prevent Congress from enforcing constitutional qualifications.

"Powell essentially means that Congress cannot add on to the minimum qualifications set out in the Constitution," Yoo said. "[S]ince citizenship is set out in the text of the Constitution as a qualification, it clearly can be enforced by Congress. Powell in-fact would support a congressional decision to oust Congresswoman Omar if she was in fact not a citizen."

Stimson argued that citizenship itself is not a legal gray area.

"The Powell v. McCormack decision did not involve expulsion. It actually was to judge qualifications. That's a subtle but important difference," he said.

Stimson envisioned a January showdown if federal authorities presented evidence challenging Omar's citizenship before the new Congress convenes and House Republicans attempted to prevent her from being seated. Such a move would likely face a legal challenge from Omar, he said, raising questions about whether Congress could act before her citizenship status was resolved.

The Constitution requires House members to be at least 25 years old, have been U.S. citizens for seven years and inhabit the states they represent when elected. Stimson argued that even if alleged immigration irregularities originated with Omar's father, Nur Omar Mohamed, the central question would be whether she legally acquired citizenship, regardless of whether she knowingly participated in wrongdoing.

"It's like you're either pregnant or you're not," he said. "You’re either wet or dry — You're a citizen or you are not a citizen."

In multiple public comments, Trump has urged Omar’s resignation or expulsion, specifically citing reports that she used a pseudonym when she was sworn into office and that she "married her brother."

"Let’s get her the Hell out of there," he said Monday in Alcorn County, Mississippi.

Fox News Digital reached out to Omar for comment.

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A second route would involve seating Omar and then pursuing expulsion for misconduct, a separate constitutional power requiring a two-thirds House vote. Unlike exclusion for failing to meet constitutional qualifications, expulsion is a disciplinary action that was not at issue in the Supreme Court's Powell ruling.

At least one House Republican has already threatened to pursue that option.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., said Friday that if Omar is found to not be a citizen, "I absolutely will demand expulsion immediately."

Omar faces a separate investigation into her financial disclosures, which U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro previously confirmed to Fox News. The inquiry follows scrutiny of businesses tied to her current husband, Timothy Mynett, whose reported valuations reached as high as $30 million before Omar amended the filings, citing accounting errors. No financial wrongdoing has yet been established.

Stimson pointed to the 2023 expulsion of former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., as an example of the House exercising its disciplinary authority over misconduct that began before a member took office.

Former House counsel Michael Stern wrote in an examination of the Constitution’s expulsion clause that while Santos’ alleged misconduct largely preceded his term, House investigators found that his misrepresentations continued while he was in office.

"Thus, acts committed before a member’s first election may constitute disorderly behavior subject to congressional discipline, at least if the misconduct relates to the election and particularly if it involves deceiving the electorate," Stern wrote.

Stimson said Omar’s case is largely "uncharted waters," but the Santos case could still be instructive.

"I think the argument would be, well, her misrepresentations continued during the time in Congress, they would pull a Santos and use the same logic that they used," he said.

Any federal determination challenging Omar's citizenship could trigger a legal battle over whether she meets the constitutional requirements for office and what recourse she would have to contest such a finding, Stimson said.

"The hard part for her is ‘how do you prove a negative’," Stimson said, adding that placing blame on her father wouldn’t stand up in court because people cannot legally benefit from others’ criminal acts.

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"It’s a harsh world, but it’s a binary situation."

A challenge to Omar's citizenship could also produce a separate fight over the evidence and legal procedures required to establish whether she meets the Constitution's qualifications.

Fox News Digital’s Pedro Rodriguez-Aparicio contributed to this report.

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A conservative legal group filed an election complaint in Maine Tuesday, alleging that more than 3,000 potentially dead people and hundreds of duplicate registrations were discovered on the state’s voter rolls just days before the pivotal midterm elections.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) identified 3,181 potentially dead voters and 693 duplicate registrations, urging the state to take action as Mainers prepare to cast their ballots Tuesday.

"Now we know why they were hiding them because there were problems on them," Adams told Fox News Digital. "They have dead people, they have lots of duplicates and they have general problems. It's something that should have been fixed a long time ago."

The complaint, which was filed with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, argues election officials have not made a "reasonable effort" to remove ineligible voters from the official list.

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Adams said the state should have discovered the information, not his group.

"Why does it take a third-party group like the Public Interest Legal Foundation to find these duplicates?" Adams said.

The group is asking the state to take "additional corrective action," warning it "may have no other recourse" but to appeal through the complaint process under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), a 2002 election reform law, if nothing is done.

The group compared those findings with its previous investigation in 2025, which found 18,453 potentially dead voters and 1,498 duplicate or triplicate registration records in Maine. The state addressed many of the records identified that year, but PILF said some errors remain while "new problems have arisen."

Several searches were used in the analysis to identify records that shared the same address, first and last names and birth year, as well as typos, punctuation errors, common nicknames and birth-year discrepancies.

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The complaint requests that Maine review the group’s analysis, immediately remove ineligible voters and implement a plan to ensure the state complies with HAVA "now and in the future."

"I hope she gets the job done and removes all these duplicates," Adams said.

Adams said his group has been embroiled in an ongoing legal battle and Bellows has a history of trying to "criminalize" PILF for revealing what they found. PILF sued Maine roughly six years ago over access to the state’s voter rolls and won a federal appeals court case in 2024 that required the state to make the records public.

"There's a history here of Secretary Bellows not wanting the public to know what kind of job she's doing," Adams said.

Adams accused Bellows of focusing on "defending sort of blue theories" rather than keeping Maine's voter lists accurate and up to date.

"Unfortunately, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is not getting the job done," he said.

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One of Adams' biggest concerns is that someone could use a dead person's registration to illegally vote. He said progressive state officials are reluctant to immediately remove dead voters out of fear they could mistakenly remove eligible voters, potentially leaving the door open for fraud.

"The problem is that sometimes people vote for the dead people," he said.

But Adams said he believes Maine has been trying to keep its problems out of the public eye for a long time.

"Maine has a longstanding problem trying to hide public information about whether or not they're doing a good job," he said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Bellows’ office for comment.

The legal filing comes just days before Mainers vote in a critical and tight U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson. The winner could determine the balance of power in the Senate.

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While prominent Democrats have spent years warning about threats to democracy, dozens of lawmakers and governors who endorsed Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola have declined to respond to Fox News Digital's questions about a reported effort to confuse voters and potentially cost Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan his seat.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that aides to Democratic Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola helped recruit a man named Dan Sullivan to run in an alleged effort to draw votes from Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan – though Peltola's campaign has denied involvement.

Fox News Digital reached out to 42 Democratic lawmakers and governors who endorsed Peltola to ask whether they would denounce the alleged effort to mislead Alaska voters.

As of publication, not a single one has responded.

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal, for instance, stated that "voter suppression is poisonous, it is toxic to our democracy," in 2022. His colleague, Sen. Chris Murphy, meanwhile, argued in April 2025 that "those of us who believe that the threat to democracy is urgent" need to "act like it."

And Sen. Cory Booker said in December 2016 that "protecting American democracy is a calling far higher than party politics."

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Despite their outspoken defenses of democracy and insistence that protecting it should transcend party politics, none of these lawmakers responded to Fox News Digital's questions about the alleged effort to mislead Alaska voters.

Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has made a name for himself by publicly breaking with his party on some issues, has also remained mum on the controversy.

Peltola has asserted that her campaign "has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign." The Times, for its investigation, relied on text messages it obtained as well as interviews with former campaign staffers.

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Alaska on Oct. 22 seeking to delay certification of the state's Senate election if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses and votes cast for the other Sullivan could have changed the outcome, pending an investigation into whether voter confusion played a role in the result.

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Legal experts from across the political spectrum who previously spoke to Fox News Digital said that the case faces significant challenges, particularly as it relates to trying to infer voter intent from anonymous ballots and overcoming the sovereignty of states over their elections.

Among the other Democratic Senators reached by Fox News Digital were Sens. Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla, Maggie Hassan, Chuck Schumer, Catherine Cortez Masto, Angela Alsobrooks, Andy Kim, Brian Schatz, Ed Markey, Elissa Slotkin, John Hickenlooper, Jon Ossoff, Kirsten Gillibrand, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Mark Kelly, Michael Bennet, Ruben Gallego, Sheldon Whitehouse and Tammy Duckworth.

The U.S. House members reached by Fox News Digital included Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chris Pappas, Brittany Pettersen, Eric Sorensen, Mike Levin, Hillary Scholten, Jared Huffman, Josh Harder, Pramila Jayapal, Sarah McBride, George Whitesides, Jonathan Nez and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who does not currently hold office but is running to retake his Senate seat, and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, were also asked for their reactions on the reporting.

Democratic Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gavin Newsom of California, as well as former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper – who is in the midst of a Senate campaign – were also reached for comment. 

Peltola's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

At least one Democrat has publicly criticized the alleged tactic. Iowa Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand told Fox News on Sunday that "both parties are doing it and neither party should be doing it," calling such efforts "manipulating the political system."

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A federal judge on Friday temporarily barred the Trump administration from threatening election workers with criminal prosecution over ballots tied to suspected noncitizens.

U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson found that the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security likely violated the Voting Rights Act's prohibition against voter intimidation by threatening election workers with prosecution for processing ballots from voters the administration claims are ineligible, just days before the midterm elections.

"One of the hallmarks of a fair election is the freedom to exercise the right to vote free from threat, fear, or intimidation," Thompson, a Biden-appointed judge, wrote in the eight-page order.

The ruling comes as the Trump administration has sought voter registration information from states ahead of the Nov. 3 elections, arguing that its efforts are aimed at preventing noncitizen voting and protecting election integrity.

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The temporary restraining order prohibits federal officials from threatening, intimidating or coercing state and local election workers into halting ballot processing solely because the administration alleges certain registered voters are ineligible.

The order also bars the administration from demanding that election officials remove registered voters from voter rolls, refuse to issue them ballots or segregate or decline to count their ballots based solely on those allegations.

The lawsuit was brought by labor unions and civil rights organizations, including the Service Employees International Union and the NAACP.

"Because the public has a paramount interest in ensuring that election officials and workers are able to carry out their work in accordance with federal law and election procedure, and the official day of the Elections is only a couple of days away, the balance of the equities and public interest weigh in Plaintiffs' favor," Thompson wrote.

"Ballots have already been issued," Thompson also noted. "Americans have already begun voting."

NINTH CIRCUIT QUESTIONS TRUMP DOJ'S EMERGENCY REQUEST TO SET ASIDE 20,000 CALIFORNIA MAIL BALLOTS

Thompson also ordered the administration to notify state and local governments that received the disputed letters that the demands and threats of prosecution contained in them have been blocked.

Earlier Friday, a federal appeals court separately ruled against the Trump administration's emergency request to require California to set aside mail-in ballots associated with roughly 20,000 voters federal officials identified as likely noncitizens while their citizenship status was verified.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Justice Department's request to set aside the disputed mail-in ballots while officials reviewed the voters' citizenship status, handing the administration another setback just four days before Election Day.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Fox News Digital's Jasmine Baehr and Reuters contributed to this report.

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