Homeland Security Agents Are Harassing American Voters of Foreign Origin

A campaign against noncitizen voter fraud is sweeping up U.S. citizens. California counties are suing to stop it.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is running a program that "harasses and coerces American citizens exercising the fundamental right to vote," according to a lawsuit filed last week by several institutions in California.

The Unlawful Voter Initiative is a program by the Trump administration to hunt down noncitizens illegally voting in U.S. elections. Earlier this month, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) and Alex Padilla (D–Calif.) published evidence from an unnamed whistleblower showing that the initiative is "knowingly sweeping known U.S. citizens" for investigation and possible interrogation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents.

A transcript of a training video states that DHS is cross-referencing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data with voter rolls and other information "brought in through supplemental magic." (It isn't clear what "supplemental magic" means.) The video acknowledges that the USCIS database includes naturalized U.S. citizens and even American-born citizens married to foreigners, but instructs officers to check if the naturalized citizens had registered to vote before gaining their citizenship.

Officers are given a quota of five subjects per hour to review and potentially add to TECS, a federal criminal watchlist, according to the whistleblower report. HSI—which normally handles human trafficking, drug dealing, and child exploitation—has been ordered to start interrogating people suspected of voter fraud as part of a "surge" starting on September 1, a document leaked to CNN states.

Just as the whistleblower warned, Americans have ended up in the crosshairs of the investigation. DHS sent a list of 185 alleged noncitizen voters to the state of Nevada, only to discover that every single one of them was actually a U.S. citizen, The New York Times reported on Thursday afternoon.

The city and county of San Francisco and the county of Santa Clara are now suing, alongside the California Nurses Association, which claims that at least one of its members has been intimidated out of in-person voting, and Voto Latino, a get-out-the-vote nonprofit founded by actress Rosario Dawson and businessman Phil Colón. The lawsuit alleges that HSI agents "will engage in coercive confrontations with American citizens in a manner that intimidates voters."

The plaintiffs are asking the court to ban DHS from "deploying DHS agents to the homes of U.S. citizens to interrogate them about voter eligibility" or otherwise "interfere with the midterm elections."

Asked by Reason for comment on the lawsuit, the DHS press office said that it needed more time to respond and has not responded to multiple follow-ups as of publication time.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told Fox News on Saturday that the department is "looking into" 300,000 cases and has 1,620 cases "under investigation," of which 151 have resulted in arrests. But Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told reporters on Tuesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has only charged 70 people total with unlawful voting since the beginning of the second Trump administration in January 2025.

DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels admitted to AP News that some of HSI's claimed arrests from "voter fraud investigative leads" were not for illegal voting. In other words, HSI is using the voter rolls and USCIS database to conduct a much broader fishing expedition into any federal offenses.

DHS immigration enforcers "have also in other contexts shown an inability to target only non-U.S. citizens. They have on countless occasions profiled, harassed, and unlawfully detained U.S. citizens," the California lawsuit states. "Thus, although U.S. citizens should in theory have nothing to fear from immigration agents, Defendants' conduct has instilled wide-ranging fright among citizens—especially citizens with perceived links to immigrant communities."

Comments

[SQRLSY]

If shit looks like an illegal sub-human, and-or votes like an illegal sub-human, and-or talks like an illegal sub-human, and-or quacks like an illegal sub-human, shit must BE an illegal sub-human!!! Dear Orange Leader (Blessed Bleeder of the peons) and His MAGAts TOLD me so!

(Hey, twat happppened to schpell check around here anyway?!?!)

[Fu Manchu]

It's hilarious that Trump's deranged obsession with his loss in 2020 is just reinforcing how rare voter fraud is. If 300,000 cases leads to 70 people charged, and presumably fewer convictions, that means fewer than 0.023% of people investigated voted illegally. But I guess Ken Paxtons are rarer than you guys thought.

[Idaho-Bob]

We're doing the "it's rare so do not enforce it" bullshit?

[Fu Manchu]

Nice strawman. How about it's so rare, don't disenfranchise tens of millions by requiring them to get new documents proving citizenship or completely fucking up mail-in voting.

[mad.casual]

Two weeks later -
"I figured if enough other parents and I threw our kids to the wolves, eventually the wolves would get somewhat less feral or at least full, you know?" - Nikole Hanna Jones.

No, Nikole Matthew Petti. A lot of people got abjectly fucking mauled for us to get where we are and them to get where they are. It's going to take more than a few years of you torturing your own kids to get to anything any of us would recognize as "domesticated".

If someone can move here, apply for citizenship, and then register to vote before they are granted (or denied) some level of citizenship, that's a fucking security issue. Any home, business, or corporation in the country would fix their physical security situation long before random people off the street got a chair at the table and a vote on how to balance the books. Feel free to reel in the state so that it's more like someone camping on the parkway or hanging out at the curb. Otherwise, you're only justifying the low-trust "You're not from around here, are you?" sentiment.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

How many legal voters are you willing to disenfranchise in order to increase "voter integrity" even further?

There is a thing called "law of diminishing returns", you know.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Earlier this month, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) and Alex Padilla (D–Calif.) published evidence from an unnamed whistleblower showing that the initiative is "knowingly sweeping known U.S. citizens" for investigation and possible interrogation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents.

As I learned with all of the "Biden Crime Family" investigations of just a few years ago, "unnamed whistleblowers" are unimpeachable sources of truth and must be believed otherwise one is in favor of corruption and illegal conduct.

[Idaho-Bob]

HSI—which normally handles human trafficking, drug dealing, and child exploitation—has been ordered to start interrogating people suspected of voter fraud as part of a "surge" starting on September 1, a document leaked to CNN states.

I'd argue voter fraud is on the same level as human trafficking, drug dealing, and child exploitation.

The rest of this "article" is sponsored by the same cretins who passed the Stop Nick Shirley Act.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Let's be real. Voter fraud is on the same level as genocide and mass murder. Amirite?

[Social Justice is neither]

Because of course Cali is the gold standard for election integrity and they absolutely wouldn't be trying to cover their corruption.

[Fu Manchu]

The Trump Admin keeps desperately searching for voter fraud and failing. But cling to your narratives.

[mad.casual]

A transcript of a training video states that DHS is cross-referencing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data with voter rolls and other information "brought in through supplemental magic." (It isn't clear what "supplemental magic" means.) The video acknowledges that the USCIS database includes naturalized U.S. citizens and even American-born citizens married to foreigners, but instructs officers to check if the naturalized citizens had registered to vote before gaining their citizenship.
...
Officers are given a quota of five subjects per hour to review and potentially add to TECS, a federal criminal watchlist, according to the whistleblower report. HSI—which normally handles human trafficking, drug dealing, and child exploitation—has been ordered to start interrogating people suspected of voter fraud as part of a "surge" starting on September 1, a document leaked to CNN states.

Just as the whistleblower warned, Americans have ended up in the crosshairs of the investigation. DHS sent a list of 185 alleged noncitizen voters to the state of Nevada,

Setting aside "anonymous whistleblower" and the several bases that you skipped, you're salami slicing your own Catch-22 and using it to hedge an argument for further obstruction.

An analogy; the (base)ball gets hit to the fence in the corner. The runner rounds first (misses second) and is running for home as the outfielder throws the ball to the catcher. The ball lands in the catcher's mitt at approximately the same time. The play repeats 300,000 times. 99.46% of the time, there's no question. Of the remaining 1,640 times, >90% of the time the runner *may* have beat the tag, but it's also possible that the catcher illegally blocked the plate. So we really should be extra cautious about the number or fraction of times (1%?) the catcher illegally blocks the plate and "supplemental magic" by which the ball comes from the outfield to his glove?

You, your anonymous whistleblower, and the State of California can go fuck yourselves. Catcher's doing a great job. Quit trying to deliberately fuck up the entire game of baseball for literally everyone else.