The investigative division of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processed over 99 million voter records as part of an unprecedented surveillance operation, according to 166 pages of internal documents released by the group Democracy Forward, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit described the initiative internally as a "national phased initiative" that encompassed the acquisition of voter rolls, extensive data analysis, and field operations in various states.
According to an internal report from June 1, HSI ingested 50.6 million records from a database of the Department of Justice, plus another 48.4 million obtained by Heather Honey, principal advisor to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, through "independent information sources" that the documents do not identify.
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These data could include public voter lists from California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Nevada that the Department of Homeland Security analyzed.
To process the registries, the agency used the ELITE tool from Palantir, originally designed to locate foreigners subject to deportation.
The researchers did not limit themselves to tracking individual voters; they adopted a "network-based investigative approach," prioritizing the analysis of organizations and facilitators over specific cases.
Most of the documents provide information on how HSI and other components of the DHS focused on trying to identify cases of electoral fraud in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Ohio, with the aim of prosecuting them.
They reviewed dozens of nonprofit organizations, although many of those reviews did not yield evidence of irregularities.
The documents also reveal that HSI considered deploying undercover agents to infiltrate organizations suspected of facilitating the illegal registration of non-citizens, focusing on New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
A spokesperson for the DHS defended the operation: "The DHS has been incredibly transparent about the acquisition and analysis of publicly accessible voter files. The DHS and the DOJ are fully focused on prosecuting and deporting foreigners who vote."
Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, responded sharply: "It seems that the president and his allies want to choose their voters, rather than allowing it to function as it should in a democracy, where voters choose their leaders."
In July, Mullin announced that his department had found approximately 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Nevada alone, claims that officials in those states have repeatedly challenged, according to CNN.
An internal legal guide from ICE dated December 2025 established that illegal voting can result in deportation even without a criminal conviction. The document specified: "There is no requirement for the foreigner to have known that they voted illegally, nor is a conviction required."
The operation is taking place amid a surge in prosecutions ahead of the midterm elections in November 2026.
Among the most recent cases connected to Cuba are the arrest of Andrés García, a 64-year-old permanent resident in Kansas City, accused of participating in at least 15 elections over 20 years, and Pedro Pablo Ruiz, a 68-year-old Cuban permanent resident in Louisiana, charged with allegedly voting without being a U.S. citizen in the 2024 general elections.
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