Internal Homeland Security records released Oct. 7, 2026, show that Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators ingested tens of millions of voter records while looking for noncitizens who vote and examining dozens of voter-registration groups, according to reporting by Scripps News and CNN.
The 166 pages were obtained by the advocacy group Democracy Forward and describe an operation run by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), ICE’s investigative arm, ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. midterm elections. A June 1 HSI report said investigators ingested 50.6 million records from a Justice Department dataset, and 48.4 million more that a senior Homeland Security official obtained from what the document calls “independent sources of information.”
The official, Heather Honey, is a senior counsellor to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. The records do not name the independent sources. The Justice Department dataset may include unredacted voter lists that more than a dozen Republican-led states provided voluntarily, Scripps reported. The department has sued 30 other states to obtain their unredacted rolls.
By late May, HSI had opened 418 voter-fraud cases and made 64 administrative arrests, the records show. Of those cases, 318 had not been referred for prosecution. Investigators had also sent more than 1,500 immigration-record leads to field offices.
The documents describe what an internal comparison called a “network-based investigative approach” aimed at organizations rather than individual voters. Investigators reviewed dozens of nonprofit voter-registration groups in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states. Many of those reviews found no wrongdoing: investigators reported no derogatory information on dozens of New Jersey groups and closed an Ohio inquiry after exhausting leads, Scripps reported.
Other parts of the probe went further. Federal agents raided the Ohio Organizing Collaborative on June 11, three days after ICE told senior officials that agents planned to execute search warrants and interview more than 100 current and former employees of companies tied to a progressive canvassing firm, Black Fork Strategies. The heavily redacted records do not explicitly name Black Fork as the target of the warrants. A June report also said officials were weighing the use of undercover agents in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. IBTimes UK, which also reviewed the disclosure, said the documents do not establish that any undercover operation took place.
A Homeland Security spokesperson said the department has been “incredibly transparent” about its use of publicly available voter files, which are analyzed by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services fraud detection directorate. The spokesperson said Homeland Security and the Justice Department are “laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote,” according to Scripps.
Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s president and chief executive, said the administration appears to want to “pick their voters” rather than let voters choose their leaders, Scripps reported. In a statement quoted by IBTimes UK, she said: “The information revealed in the documents should concern all Americans.”
The records also touch on the Palantir ELITE data-integration tool. Scripps reported the documents suggest the administration used it to process state voter rolls. IBTimes UK reported that records show ICE sought to move state voter data into the system but do not show whether the transfer was completed. It cited a source who told Democracy Docket the data was not integrated. CNN said it asked Palantir for comment.
The disclosure follows a claim Mullin made in July that about 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Officials in those states have repeatedly disputed that figure. ICE legal guidance from December 2025 says suspected unlawful voting can lead to immigration consequences even without a criminal conviction. ICE Deputy Director Charles Wall wrote in July that “HSI is heavily working these cases,” the records show.
Documented cases of noncitizen voting have been rare, IBTimes UK noted, while President Donald Trump has repeatedly alleged widespread fraud. The investigations are continuing, many details in the records remain redacted, and the Justice Department’s lawsuits against 30 states over voter rolls are pending. The documents come from an advocacy group’s records request and have not been confirmed by a government statement beyond the department’s general comments.
Via Scripps News, CNN and IBTimes UK.
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