A whistleblower says Department of Homeland Security agents may have broken state laws while searching voting rolls for noncitizens.
The department’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” an operation Donald Trump has pushed as his party faces an uphill battle in the midterms, involves hundreds of agents looking through state-managed voter rolls to try to find ineligible voters. But several concerning—and potentially illegal—aspects of this operation seem to exist.
In the whistleblower’s report, obtained by The New York Times, the individual says agents may have broken state laws at department leaders’ direction. For instance, investigators used personally identifiable information like birth dates and partial Social Security numbers to pose as voters and search for voter records on public-facing state websites. But in certain states, like Virginia, the law states that only individuals may access their own voter records.
The whistleblower also says the operation used questionable data DHS compiled through “supplemental magic,” and may have erroneously flagged U.S. citizens eligible to vote.
Additionally, agents have a quota of 40 reviews in a typical eight-hour workday, meaning there is considerable potential for a rushed error during a 12-minute search, on average, the whistleblower alleges. Errors can affect individuals’ residency and immigration status.
The report says that when the whistleblower raised legal concerns with leadership in the department’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, the office of the chief counsel told them the actions were permissible.
The office also added that agents “are not personally liable for conducting these searches when done as part of their official duties and properly documented.”
Democracy Defenders Fund, a watchdog group that produced the report, said this response was concerning.
“This statement suggests that there may be legal implications for accessing these websites,” it said. “Yet they are still requiring officers to engage in this illegal activity with promises of personal liability protection.”
DHS disputed that conclusion.
“The Department accessed publicly available data from states’ voter rolls and cross-referenced them with known aliens in our systems. It’s not rocket science; it’s an easy step to secure our elections,” a spokesperson told the Daily Beast, as part of a lengthy statement.
“The only magic being performed here is the media conjuring controversy out of commonplace law enforcement,” the spokesperson added.
“Far from being rushed or untrained, these investigative efforts are conducted diligently and professionally. Identification and investigation of aliens who vote in our elections provides an essential guarantee in the authenticity of our election results,” the spokesperson added. “There is no quota on criminality. DHS will pursue each and every illegal voter to the fullest extent of the law.”
The whistleblower is anonymous. Democracy Defenders Fund said the person requested not to be identified publicly because of “an extreme fear of retaliation.” The group added that the whistleblower felt ”an obligation to speak up about the misconduct and gross mismanagement they have witnessed.”
Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla, 53, and Chuck Schumer, 75, obtained the whistleblower report and wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, 49, on Sunday, demanding the operation stop. The two held a press conference on the matter Monday on Capitol Hill.
In a corresponding press release, the senators stated that the allegations “are especially alarming because they come just weeks before the November 2026 midterm elections.”
“The Administration is publicly asserting, without evidence, that large numbers of noncitizens are unlawfully registered to vote and deploying federal law enforcement resources to investigate those claims,” they wrote.
“If unreliable DHS data is used to generate purported evidence of ‘unlawful voters,’ that could disenfranchise eligible voters or disrupt state and local election administration. DHS must not allow unreliable federal data or rushed investigations to interfere with Americans’ right to vote or the administration of the November elections.”
In its statement to the Daily Beast, DHS defended its operation: “Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences—including criminal charges and deportation.”
