The Brief

The Department of Agriculture is demanding states hand over personal data of food assistance recipients — including Social Security numbers, addresses and, in at least one state, citizenship status, according to emails shared with NPR by an official who was not allowed to speak publicly.

The sweeping and unprecedented request comes as the Trump administration ramps up the collection and consolidation of Americans' sensitive data, and as that data has been used to make misleading claims about people in the U.S. illegally accessing public benefits and committing fraud, and to build a greater capacity to deport them.

The emails obtained by NPR also show the nationwide directive regarding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, follows a request by federal auditors for information that included citizenship data but not other data typically used to verify financial eligibility for the program.

In 2024, SNAP served an average of 42 million people each month, according to the Department of Agriculture, at a cost of $100 billion. Only some categories of lawfully present noncitizens are eligible to receive SNAP benefits, and those without legal status can never qualify. However, a noncitizen parent without legal status may apply for the assistance on behalf of their children who are U.S. citizens.

The latest data demands are "absolutely alarming," and "reckless" and likely violate the Privacy Act and other statutes, said John Davisson, senior counsel and director of litigation at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. He and other advocates warn the data could be used to enable deportation and mass surveillance efforts and would do little to address improper payments.

"It is an unprecedented extension of the administration's campaign to consolidate personal data," Davisson said.

USDA's unusual data request

SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is a federal program. Each state administers the program and enrolls participants based on eligibility determined by Congress. While the USDA and its Office of Inspector General can audit state SNAP programs, participants' personal data typically remains under the state's control.

In March, the USDA's Office of Inspector General notified California, Florida, New York and Texas of inspections of their SNAP programs to see if the states were improperly using administrative funds to pay out benefits, the emails show.

That ultimately led to a request for detailed sensitive data — including citizenship status and addresses — of all SNAP participants in the previous year from at least one of the states.

A sign outside of a grocery store welcomes those on food assistance in a Brooklyn neighborhood that has a large immigrant and elderly population on Oct. 16, 2023 in New York City.

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An April 2 update the state received from the OIG's office added a new objective: performing analytics on participant data to "evaluate its quality and integrity." Yet the watchdog ultimately declined to request participants' employment status or income — which are key for determining financial eligibility for food assistance and detecting possible fraud.

Instead, the request prioritized other data fields, including name, date of birth, address, contact information, Social Security number, citizenship status and information about household members, the emails show.

At an initial joint video conference, the states learned the inspections had been requested by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, according to an official who attended the meeting but was not authorized to discuss the matter. Trump fired existing inspectors general across the federal government when he took office, including at the USDA where a new permanent leader of the office has yet to be confirmed.

Earlier this week, the USDA escalated its quest for data further.

In a May 6 letter to all states, an adviser for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services said the federal agency would be seeking personally identifiable information for SNAP applicants and recipients, including, but not limited to, "names, dates of birth, personal addresses used, and Social Security numbers" going back to Jan. 1, 2020. USDA did not answer NPR's questions about the full extent of personal data it was requesting.

The letter said USDA is asking private contractors that process SNAP payments for states to turn over that data, and will use it to "ensure program integrity, including by verifying the eligibility of benefit recipients." The directive comes as Republican lawmakers in Congress are proposing deep cuts to the food assistance program that would reduce the number of people who participate in it.

DOGE's role

The May 6 letter cited President Donald Trump's March 20 executive order, "Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos," which calls on agencies to ensure the federal government "has unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding "including from "third-party databases" in order to identify fraud and overpayments.

The ad hoc Department of Government Efficiency team, or DOGE, has been accessing sensitive data across the federal government in recent months and has been using allegations of wasteful and fraudulent spending to justify dismantling government agencies. Neither DOGE nor the White House responded to NPR's requests for comment.

Fidelity Information Services, a vendor used by some states to process electronic bank transfer transactions for SNAP programs, told its state partners the day before USDA's letter to states that the agency and its DOGE team contacted them in connection to the executive order, and that "no proprietary, confidential, or personally identifiable information" was shared, according to emails obtained by NPR.

A customer shops for eggs at a grocery store on March 12, 2025 in Chicago.

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"FIS values its close working relationship with both USDA and its state partners and is committed to supporting efforts to improve program efficiency and reduce fraud," reads a statement the company provided to NPR. "As agreed with the USDA and in compliance with federal regulation, FIS has notified States of the USDA's request and is working with both to determine the most efficient manner to respond with the requested information."

Wired, the Washington Post and CNN have reported that DOGE is also combining sensitive data from across agencies, including Social Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service, to create a data tool that can help the federal government track and arrest immigrants they want to remove.

More than a dozen federal lawsuits allege DOGE staffers have been illegally granted permission to view databases with personal and financial information the government maintains, and multiple federal judges have expressed concern about what information DOGE has accessed and why. Late last month, DHS announced a DOGE-led overhaul of its Systematic Alien Verification Entitlements (SAVE) database, making the system free for state and local governments to use and promising a "single, reliable source for verifying non-citizen status nationwide."

Davisson, the privacy attorney, said the SNAP data being requested could be used to make exaggerated allegations of fraud, and that combining the information with other DOGE-obtained data could be used for immigration enforcement efforts.

"What they're building is a surveillance weapon and it can be put to all sorts of adverse uses in the future," said Davisson.

NPR asked the USDA if the agency would be following protocols outlined in the Privacy Act, such as publishing a privacy assessment and System of Records Notice for the new dataset. An unnamed spokesperson using a USDA press email account told NPR the agency's general counsel is determining whether that is required.

"All personally identifiable information will comply with all privacy laws and regulations and will follow responsible data handling requirements," the email said.

Fraud and abuse with SNAP benefits are rare

After Trump issued an executive order in February aimed at ensuring immigrants without legal status are not receiving federal benefits, Agriculture Secretary Rollins made combatting alleged mispayments to ineligible immigrants a focus.

"The days in which taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize illegal immigration are over," Rollins said in a February press release.

In fiscal year 2023 about 11% of SNAP benefits distributed were considered improper over- or underpayments. Still, even fewer — about 1% of those — were attributed to state-level issues related to determining citizenship eligibility, according to USDA's own data.

Most of the improper payments in 2022 were due to unintentional mistakes by state workers or households, rather than intentional fraud, according to an analysis of the data by the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Only 50% of eligible noncitizens (which includes refugees and green card holders) and 59% of eligible children living with noncitizen adults participated in SNAP in 2022, according to a USDA report. Overall, advocates said participation among those who are entitled to receive this benefit is low due to fears that it may have a negative impact on immigration proceedings.

A sign alerting customers about SNAP food stamps benefits is displayed in a Brooklyn grocery store on Dec. 5, 2019 in New York City.

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Even though immigrants without legal status are not eligible to receive SNAP or other federal benefits, SNAP data does include the names and addresses of people who could be subject to deportation now or in the future, or who share a household with people who could be.

Some legal immigrants who receive SNAP benefits may lose their legal status in the future given that the administration is trying to reverse Biden-era immigration programs that granted hundreds of thousands of people the ability to live and work in the U.S.

For years, advocates and state agencies have tried to reassure immigrant families that it is safe for them to sign up for assistance if they met the eligibility requirements.

"People seeking services need to know that their information will be used only to administer the program — and won't put them or their family members at risk," said Tanya Broder, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center.

"But the federal government's demand for 'unfettered' access to sensitive data across multiple agencies, and its aggressive pursuit of immigrants, raise serious privacy concerns and the potential that information will be weaponized against people who would go hungry without assistance."

On an FAQ page to sign up for food assistance from California, the site currently says the state will not report applicants' immigration status to authorities and information is used only to determine eligibility.

"Authorities cannot use this information to deport you unless there is a criminal violation," the state website says.

New York's website says: "Applying for or receiving SNAP will not affect your ability to remain in the United States."

Advocates NPR spoke with said it is important for SNAP participants to understand that it is not yet known at this point how states will handle the USDA's pending data requests.

Esther Reyes with Protecting Immigrant Families, a coalition of 700 groups across the country that help eligible immigrants access services, is urging states to check with their congressional delegations about whether the data requests are legal before responding.

As for people who may feel fearful about enrolling in SNAP given concerns over data, Reyes said, "We really encourage families and communities to talk to enrollment workers and the people that they trust before acting on that fear."

NPR's Ximena Bustillo contributed reporting.

Have information you want to share about SNAP, DOGE access to government databases and immigration? Reach out to these authors through encrypted communication on Signal. Stephen Fowler is at stphnfwlr.25, Jude Joffe-Block is at JudeJB.10 and Ximena Bustillo is at ximenabustillo.77. Please use a nonwork device.
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Before it passed last year, a major new California housing law that allows more apartments near public transit stops faced stiff opposition from Los Angeles politicians.

L.A. elected leaders are continuing to fight it, arguing the law jeopardizes efforts to expand local transportation infrastructure.

The latest round of resistance comes from the L.A. Metro Board of Directors, which voted Thursday to formally oppose local implementation of the law, SB 79. The only members who declined to join in opposition were L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath.

The transit agency recently published a staff report that recommended the board stand against a bill that seeks to clarify certain points on how SB 79 will be implemented.

The Metro staff report went beyond asking for technical tweaks to the legislation. One of its suggestions called for “exempting Los Angeles County from SB 79.” Another recommendation suggested “limiting the bill’s applicability to the Bay Area as a pilot project.”

‘Absolutely ridiculous’ say housing proponents

Advocates for more housing development said that seeking to override the law, which takes effect July 1, would be counterproductive for L.A.’s troubled transit agency. They said resisting new housing will reduce the number of riders living within walking distance of a Metro stop.

Azeen Khanmalek — executive director of Abundant Housing L.A., a co-sponsor of SB 79 — called the report’s recommendations “absolutely ridiculous.”

“We can't just continue this recalcitrant opposition in perpetuity,” Khanmalek said. “We really hope Metro is on board and wants more riders near their transit stations.”

But Metro’s Board of Directors is made up of elected leaders who have, in some cases, already made their positions on SB 79 clear.

Before Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law in October, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass asked him to veto it.

Two other board members, L.A. City Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Imelda Padilla, voted with a slim majority of the council last year to oppose SB 79.

Metro says law will boost transit opposition

About three-quarters of all residential land in incorporated L.A. County is zoned for single-family homes. But under SB 79, some of those neighborhoods could now be eligible for dense apartment buildings, as long as they lie within a half-mile of a major transit stop.

The Metro staff report said SB 79 could harm the transit agency’s expansion goals by galvanizing housing opponents against new light rail stations and dedicated bus lanes.

“SB 79 has become a catalyst for local opposition to Metro’s transit projects,” the report said. “By linking increased housing density to both existing and future transit investments, the law has intensified resistance from some cities and community groups that now view new transit projects as a trigger for state-mandated upzoning.”

Asking for tweaks, or total exemption?

The report also called on state lawmakers to clarify the term “light rail transit,” which could affect how SB 79 will apply to neighborhoods around Metro’s A, C, E and K rail lines.

At an earlier Metro meeting, Board Vice Chair Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker supported calls to carve L.A. County out of the law.

“We’ve found that the effort to have one-size-fits all planning didn’t work,” she said. “It is ingenious to suggest that any modifications be tested in the Bay Area first.”

Hahn said she supported asking for more moderate amendments to the SB 79 clean-up bill, SB 677, but she did not think lawmakers would take seriously calls for a countywide exemption.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re willing to dialogue,” Hahn said. “I would just like to see some amendments that feel a little bit more realistic.”

Every Sunday, crispy waffles, breakfast “stanwiches” and a wagyu pastrami brisket on rye await you at Stanley's, a to-go window on Fountain Avenue in Hollywood.

Michelin-starred chef Michael Tang has worked in renowned kitchens like Leopardo in Los Angeles and Quince and Saison in the Bay Area. But now he’s bringing fine-dining technique to nostalgic diner fare at his new pop-up, creating food that's, as he puts it, "approachable instead of esoteric."

The self-funded operation, which is named after his father, is all about embracing constraints: a to-go format, less expensive equipment, and tighter margins. For Tang, those limitations became creative fuel.

"I'm figuring out my voice and developing a style," he said.

The food: technique meets nostalgia

Tang has been obsessed with creating the perfect waffle for two years, aiming for something "fully crispy outside, moist inside, not overly dense." The result is a hybrid that borrows from Belgian Liège-style waffles, studded with pearl sugar that caramelizes on the hot iron, while using an American-style batter rather than dough, resulting in a lighter texture.

When I tried it recently, it was sweet and eggy, with the caramelized sugar creating pockets of crunch along crispy edges. It costs $5, yet comes with French Bordier maple butter. "Why serve something that doesn't taste special?" he said.

Meanwhile, for his $13 pastrami sandwich, he makes the pastrami himself, taking on a challenge others avoid. "The fridge space is insane for pastrami production," he said — one reason most restaurants outsource to specialty purveyors.

Stanley's pastrami sandwich: eight-day Tajima Wagyu brisket on Bub and Grandma's sourdough.

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His eight-day process starts with Tajima Wagyu brisket, brined to season the meat evenly without over-curing. After brining, he applies a custom spice blend, then smokes it over California red oak and almond wood.

The effort shows. Served on Bub and Grandma's sourdough, Tang offers fatty or lean slices — I asked for both. I'm picky about pastrami in Los Angeles (it's hard to nail unless you're Langer's), but Stanley's version delivers: meaty, flavorful, with a proper fat ratio that doesn't turn greasy.

Tang also offers a vegan pastrami made from celery root, which takes four days instead of eight because vegetables are more porous. The choice wasn't random: celery root, apple, and horseradish, topped with a miso mustard that adds brightness, pairing well with the pastrami spices. I sampled it alongside the Wagyu version — it was delicious and substantial enough to satisfy anyone, vegan or not.

The sleeper hit

But the revelation came from an item Tang recommended I try: the Shumai Slam, also $13. The shrimp-and-pork croquette on a Martin's potato roll didn't initially catch my eye — until I noticed the steamed egg.

The Shumai Slam didn't initially catch my eye until Tang insisted I try it.

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As the name suggests, the shrimp-and-pork filling is an ode to Cantonese dim sum, with familiar notes of Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil. That alone would be impressive, but the steamed egg elevates it entirely.

Tang steams eggs in a hotel pan until they look almost like cheese slices, then lays them across the sandwich. The result is velvety smooth and intensely eggy, elevating the entire sandwich beyond its humble components. I haven't stopped thinking about it and now I want steamed eggs on all my breakfast sandwiches.

Sourcing with purpose

Stanley's breakfast beverages.

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The housemade sodas, sourced through farmers' markets, use "seconds" — bruised peaches and imperfect fruit still good for juicing. The coffee soda, made from a local roaster, tastes more like an espresso tonic: robust, cool, refreshing. I'd order it again, despite not being a regular cold brew drinker.

On good days, Tang and business partner Ivana Ruslie pay themselves minimum wage if they hit about 55 customers per pop-up. The rest of the week, they hustle through consulting work, private dinners, and R&D projects.

It's the new chef playbook: multiple income streams instead of single paychecks, community over prestige, sustainability over stars. Tang's redefining success on his own terms — though he admits he wouldn't say no to an angel investor with brick-and-mortar dreams.

California is among several dozen states that have thus far resisted the Trump administration’s demands for access to sensitive information, including driver’s license and Social Security numbers, about tens of millions of voters. Earlier this month, a federal judge in L.A. dismissed the administration’s lawsuit against California, saying the federal government doesn’t have a right to the personal information of the state’s 23 million voters.

But that’s unlikely to be the end of the battle: the Trump administration has nearly identical lawsuits pending against 22 other states and the District of Columbia.

In the most recent episode of the LAist podcast Imperfect Paradise, we examined what’s behind the Trump administration's quest to collect voter data. What could be done with that information? And why are election officials in California and around the country resisting the federal government's demands?

Here are some highlights of that conversation, edited and expanded for clarity, between Imperfect Paradise host Nereida Moreno and LAist correspondent Jill Replogle.

Before we dive in, what’s the topline here? 

The U.S. Department of Justice says it needs states’ complete voter files to make sure states are preventing voter fraud. But critics worry the government has other motives, including trying to amass a national voter file that could be used to attack political opponents, and cancel the registrations of legitimate voters.

Jill, you've reported on local politics in Southern California for years. How and when did this battle between California and the federal government over sensitive voter data begin? 

I'm based in Orange County and I've covered quite a few elections there. Orange County's election system and the Registrar of Voters is really top-notch and super well-respected around the state.

But recently a couple of very big things happened in Orange County that election integrity skeptics would say confirmed their suspicions that our election systems are not as secure as officials make them out to be.

Let's talk about those. What happened?

Well, the most scandalous one was the voting dog. A woman in Costa Mesa named Laura Yourex registered her dog Maya to vote and then actually voted for the dog in the 2021 recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the 2022 presidential primary.

Just to be clear, did the dog walk into a polling place or, like, how did they vote?

No, but fair question. Yourex just registered the dog to vote and then she turned in the ballots that were sent out in the dog’s name.

Yourex essentially turned herself in last year. She was ultimately charged with five felonies and she could face six years in state prison. She said she did it to expose flaws in the election system.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer talks about election security at the county registrar's office on Feb. 26, 2024.

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And what was the second thing that happened that fueled these concerns about voter fraud? 

We have to back up a little for this one. Michael Gates, the former city attorney of Huntington Beach, was contacted by a resident in October 2024 who said that their father-in-law, who was not a U.S. citizen, had received a ballot.

A few months later, Gates gets a job in the Trump administration's Department of Justice, and one of the first things he does is request records from the Orange County Registrar of people removed from the list of registered voters because they weren’t citizens.

Page, the Registrar, gives him 17 records of people removed since 2020 because they didn't meet the citizenship requirement. But he redacts sensitive information, including their driver’s license and Social Security numbers, per state law on elections and privacy.

And then the DOJ sues the Registrar to get access to that redacted, sensitive information. Soon after, the DOJ sues California for its entire, unredacted database of registered voters, about 23 million people. To date, the federal government has sued 24 states and the District of Columbia for their voter data. The Brennan Center for Justice is tracking the issue.

In California, federal Judge David O. Carter recently ruled that the federal government is not entitled to that data. A judge in Oregon made a similar, tentative ruling. But all the other cases are still pending.

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page outside of the main office in Santa Ana.

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Why are states pushing so hard against this request for their voter data?

I think, in part, it speaks to the increasing partisan divide in everything, including how we run our elections. There are some states that have handed all of this data over willingly to the federal government. They're all red states.

Most, but definitely not all, of the states that have resisted handing over the data are blue states.

The states that are resisting have several main reasons. For one thing, the Constitution grants states the responsibility to determine how they run elections, not the federal government. Elections are very clearly a state power.

Another thing is that California law and similar laws in many other states prohibit those states from sharing private information about their voters.

Also, these states say federal election law, and the federal Privacy Act, prohibit the federal government from collecting this kind of data without providing a very specific reason. Under the Privacy Act, the government also has to give public notice before they collect data, they have to say how they're going to use it, and they have to provide an opportunity for public comment.

Elections experts and voting rights advocates have also weighed in on the debate. What have they told you about the federal government’s push to collect this data?

One of their major questions is, what does the federal government plan to do with the data? The Trump administration hasn't clearly answered that question. According to critics, a big suspicion is that they want to use it for immigration enforcement.

Bob Page, the Orange County Registrar of Voters, explains election operations to a group of reporters on Feb. 26, 2024.

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Officials have gone back and forth when asked if they plan to share this data with the Department of Homeland Security. But here's how that could work. There's a database run by the Department of Homeland Security called SAVE that's essentially a citizenship check. They could run all this voter data through that system to try to crosscheck whether there are non-citizens voting.

But there are questions about the accuracy of SAVE. In fact, one of our NPR colleagues recently reported on naturalized citizens who have been improperly flagged in this system as not being eligible to vote and have had their registrations canceled.

So there's a concern about voter suppression, and about people who actually are eligible to vote being removed from voter rolls improperly.

It’s important to note that state election officials and county election officials are constantly removing people from registration rolls who died or moved out of state. They're adding people who are registering to vote. They're changing people's addresses. It's a super dynamic system. And some experts, including Eileen O’Connor with the Brennan Center, expressed doubt that the federal government could do that better than individual states:

O’Connor and others also told me they worry that the federal government could use the data to promote false claims about election fraud, and to target political opponents.

A glimpse at part of the ballot counting process at the Orange County Registrar of Voters

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There’s also a big concern about amassing that much data, right?

Yes, from states and from privacy experts. If the federal government is, indeed, trying to compile a national voter file, that's something like 75% of Americans (of voting age). Just imagine what a gold mine that would be for a hacker.

And there have been some questions about how seriously the Trump administration takes data security. The Washington Post recently reported that a DOGE employee improperly shared Americans’ private social security data with an outside political group, with the aim of overturning election results in some states. The Justice Department admitted to this in a court filing in a whistleblower case.

Earlier this month, Judge Carter agreed with California in his ruling dismissing the government's demand for voter data. What did he say in his ruling? 

Judge Carter essentially scolded the Justice Department for trying to use legislation intended to prevent voter suppression during the civil rights era to try to “amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data.” He largely agreed with many of the concerns laid out by California and other states, and voting rights advocates. And he said further:

Carter also echoed some of the deeper concerns expressed by critics of this effort by the Trump administration, including that the government could use the data to spy on everyday Americans. The Privacy Act was actually put in place in response to Watergate and counterintelligence programs, where the government was spying on folks like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on the Black Panthers, on anti-war protestors, on Black Americans, in general.

Carter said the Trump administration’s demand for California voters' data violates the Privacy Act.

What is likely to come next in this battle? How does this get resolved?

Judge Carter said from the beginning that he wanted to make a ruling quickly under the assumption that the case would be appealed and could eventually make it to the Supreme Court. If that happens, the Supreme Court could have the final decision on whether the federal government gets access to voter data from California and all the other states it has sued.

Can we go back to those 17 people in Orange County who were removed from the voter rolls. That incident kinda kicked off this whole battle for voter data, at least in California. How did those people get registered to vote in the first place if they weren’t citizens? 

Most people in California register to vote through the DMV. In fact, you are automatically registered to vote when you get a license or change your address unless you opt out, or indicate that you are not eligible to vote.

Basically, you have to check a box saying that you are a citizen. You attest, under penalty of perjury, to being a citizen. That’s required under federal election law. But you don’t have to prove it.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon has vowed to root out voter fraud and "make our elections great again."

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These 17 people removed from the rolls, all but one self-reported that they were ineligible to vote. So it’s possible they made a mistake at the DMV. (The one who didn’t self-report, a Canadian citizen, was charged with four felonies for casting ballots in the primary and general election in 2016.)

Still, some people argue that checking a box attesting to citizenship is not a serious enough safeguard against people who are not eligible to vote actually registering to vote, and perhaps voting. And President Trump has put some of the most vocal critics in positions of power.

Well, how big of a problem are incidents like the 17 non-citizens registered in O.C. and the voting dog? 

On the one hand, 17 people out of about two million registered voters in the county is not a lot. On the other, some elections are won by very slim margins.

Still, many well-respected experts on elections, including Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor, say there’s no indication of widespread election fraud. Yes, we could put in more requirements to guard against fraud, but it would likely come at the expense of shutting out, and at the least, making it more difficult for eligible people to register and vote. Levitt has this analogy he likes to make to put it in perspective:

If we do decide we want more safeguards, Congress could pass a law. In fact, there’s a bill in Congress right now that would amend the National Voter Registration Act to require proof of citizenship to register to vote in a federal election.

But there's still a really big debate about how expansive, how easy versus how hard we want to make it for people to vote. There's a history in this country of making it very difficult for certain people to vote, especially Black Americans.

After the civil rights era, federal rules were put into place to try to encourage participation, to make it easier to vote. And so there's a big question of whether we want to go backwards.

California voters might get a chance to weigh in on this debate in the fall, when we're likely to have a voter ID measure on the ballot. That measure is asking people whether we want to require people to show a photo ID when they vote, or to include the last four digits of a government issued ID on their mail-in ballot.

It also would require the state to try to verify people's citizenship. So that'll be a real test of how Californians feel about this issue.

After the horror epic Sinners made Oscar history Thursday by garnering 16 nominations — including Best Director for Ryan Coogler and Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan — Angelique Jackson, senior entertainment writer at Variety, told LAist's AirTalk the director was "completely blown away."

Jackson said she spoke with Coogler and his co-producers after the news of the nominations broke.

“They were just completely blown away by the number of nominations, especially getting a few first-timers in there for some of their stars, like Michael B. Jordan,” she said.

Jackson added that Jordan, who has been working since he was a child and has delivered a “blockbuster movie star performance,” had been left out of the Oscars race until now.

Sinners, a mashup of vampires and blues music set in 1930s Mississippi, surpassed Titanic and La La Land for nominations, followed by Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which received 13 nominations.

Sinners was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Score.

Other standout nominations

Thirty-year-old Timothée Chalamet, nominated for best actor for his role in Marty Supreme, also made history as the youngest man with three nominations to his name.

KPop Demon Hunters was nominated for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song, “Golden,” which spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The film is up against Disney’s box office hit, Zootopia 2 for the Best Animated Feature category.

“The phenomenon that KPop Demon Hunters has been, this just makes us all the more excited for what we’re going to see on that Oscars stage come March,” Jackson said.

Elle Fanning, who has been acting since she was a child, also received her first Oscar nomination at age 27 for her role in Joachim Trier's film, Sentimental Value.