Politics
DHS voter-fraud probe sends agents to residents’ homes in six states
Homeland Security investigators have been questioning residents about their immigration status and voting history as the midterms approach, including in Pennsylvania. Civil-rights advocates warn the armed visits could deter eligible voters, while the department says it is pursuing election fraud.
Federal Homeland Security investigators have been going door to door in several states, asking residents about their immigration status and whether they have registered or voted. The visits, which intensified in September, are part of a federal effort to investigate alleged noncitizen voting ahead of the November 2026 midterms.
An internal directive describes a “Criminal Voter Fraud” initiative that includes field reviews in at least six states: California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Homeland Security Investigations, an enforcement arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, typically investigates crimes including drug smuggling and money laundering. A former agency investigator said voter-eligibility checks at private homes were unlike work he had seen during his 23 years with the agency.
The Department of Homeland Security has claimed as many as 250,000 noncitizens may be illegally registered to vote, a figure election experts have challenged. The Justice Department says 156 people have been charged with voting-related fraud since the start of the Trump administration; the country has about 227 million registered voters.
The federal push has also led to arrests. The Justice Department said Monday that more than 20 people, all green-card holders, had been arrested in California on allegations they illegally registered or voted. One of those arrested was a 72-year-old Belizean man accused of voting illegally in four elections. The cases are allegations, not findings of guilt.
Civil-rights advocates say armed visits could frighten eligible voters, including naturalized citizens, away from the polls. Jessica Marsden, an attorney for Protect Democracy, said the federal effort intrudes on the states’ role in election administration and risks intimidating lawful voters. DHS, by contrast, says people who are in the country legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.
The investigation relies on matching voter rolls and government records, according to an agent familiar with the initiative. A September whistleblower letter alleged that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staff were asked to review tens of thousands of voter records, including those of citizens, and were assigned daily review targets. DHS denies that investigators are rushed or that criminality quotas exist.
Marsden pointed to Nevada, where officials initially said they had identified nearly 16,000 noncitizens on voter rolls but later could not provide evidence of a single illegal registration. That episode has sharpened concerns about mistaken matches and the consequences of using government databases to pursue alleged voter fraud on a broad scale.