Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been knocking on residents’ doors across several US states to question people about their immigration status and whether they have registered to vote or cast ballots in past elections, according to a CBS News report.
The operation aims to investigate potential noncitizen voting ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections. DHS has alleged that as many as 250,000 noncitizens could be illegally registered to vote, although election experts have disputed the accuracy of the figure. According to the Department of Justice, 156 people have been charged with voting-fraud-related offences since the beginning of the Trump administration. The US has around 227 million registered voters.
The presence of armed federal agents at homes has raised concerns among civil rights advocates and legal experts, who warn that the operation could intimidate eligible voters and discourage participation in elections.
“What we're seeing now is the federal government is inserting itself into the state process for verifying their voter roles in an unprecedented way,” Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, which is suing the federal agency over the campaign, told CBS News.
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Hundreds of agents assigned to voter fraud probe
{{/usCountry}}Also Read: US visa wait times for Indians rise; Mumbai, Delhi see longest visitor visa appointment delays
Hundreds of agents assigned to voter fraud probe
{{/usCountry}}The home visits intensified in September and continued through the past weekend, according to CBS News. Internal documents reviewed by the news organization indicate that hundreds of agents were reassigned from other cases to investigate alleged noncitizen voting.
The initiative, described in an internal directive as a “Criminal Voter Fraud” operation, includes field reviews in at least six states: California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which is conducting the visits, is an enforcement arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Its work typically involves criminal investigations into offences such as drug smuggling, money laundering and child exploitation.
On Monday, the Justice Department announced that DHS agents in California had arrested more than 20 people, all green card holders, over allegations that they had illegally registered or voted. One case involved a 72-year-old man from Belize accused of voting illegally in four elections. The allegations have not been established in court.
Also Read: US launches nationwide operation targeting undocumented immigrants accused of SNAP fraud
Data matching raises concerns
According to CBS News, investigators draw on government databases, voter rolls and other datasets before attempting to match names against citizenship information held by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
A USCIS whistleblower said in September that employees were asked to review voter information for tens of thousands of people, including citizens, with a target of 40 subjects per day.
DHS defended the process, saying investigations were conducted professionally and that there was no quota for determining criminality.
On October 21, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, urged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to halt activity he said could intimidate the public during the midterm election season.