The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Markwayne Mullin, issued a direct warning to undocumented immigrants in the United States this Friday: those who have attempted to vote illegally —or to do so on behalf of another person— will be identified and prosecuted criminally, without exceptions.
In videos shared by the White House and DHS on social media, Mullin announced that the federal government has already identified 256,463 non-citizens who may be registered to vote in four states: California (190,832), New Jersey (35,152), Nevada (15,903), and Pennsylvania (14,576).
On the same day, he sent official letters to the state secretaries of those four states demanding the verification and removal of ineligible records within a two-week period.
"We have identified 250,000 unregistered non-citizens to vote in just four states. We have 46 more states," warned Mullin, emphasizing that the number could grow significantly as the national review progresses.
In addition to the records in those four states —obtained through public voter files, without direct access to state databases— the DHS worked with states that do cooperate with the federal government to detect 28,000 additional non-citizens on their voter rolls.
This includes 400,000 deceased individuals who remain registered to vote.
Mullin was emphatic in clarifying that the Real ID system does not certify citizenship nor grants the right to vote: "You must be a U.S. citizen and you must be eligible to vote."
The secretary announced that the government will review the electoral records before and after the midterm elections in November 2026, including early voting, and that in states that do not cooperate with federal authorities, available public records will also be used.
The criminal consequences are severe. According to Mullin, illegal registration and illegal voting combined can result in up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. "We will apply maximum pressure on this," he stated.
The official framed the initiative as a matter of citizen trust, not political affiliation: "Every American, regardless of their political affiliation, needs to know that when they participate in our democracy by voting, their vote will be secure and counted accurately. Anything less is unacceptable."
The SAVE America Act, promoted by Trump to require documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, was approved by the House of Representatives in February 2026 but remains stalled in the Senate.
This offensive is part of the Trump administration's campaign to strengthen electoral security ahead of November 2026.
The DHS's SAVE program (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) has processed 67 million voter records between March and May of this year.
However, a federal court ruling on June 23 temporarily blocked the use of that database to purge state voter rolls, after detecting false positives affecting naturalized citizens, particularly Latinos.
The warning has direct implications for Cubans and other immigrants with irregular immigration status. A Cuban with a deportation order since 1999 was sentenced in January of this year to five years in prison in Arkansas for voting illegally in the November 2024 elections.
A Cuban with revoked permanent residency pleaded guilty in Florida and was sentenced in February 2026 for the same crime.
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