Armed federal agents are knocking on doors in several states to ask residents about their immigration status and whether they had registered to vote or voted, a CBS News investigation has found. The visits are in the run-up to the midterms elections in November.
CBS reports that the visits increased in September and continued into the past weekend. Homeland Security Investigations, an enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is typically tasked with cross-border crimes including drug smuggling, child exploitation, and money laundering.
CBS obtained internal documents that detail a "Criminal Voter Fraud" initiative that diverted hundreds of agents away from other cases. The initiative involved field reviews in at least six states: California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin. CNN was the first to report on the initiative in August.
Agents are sent to homes using target lists created by matching voter rolls and internal lists with citizenship data maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In one video, agents can be seen holding a document labeled "Target List."
HSI field offices have shared photos of agents at voters' doors, some with guns, with captions such as "AMERICAN ELECTIONS ARE FOR AMERICANS." One post from the Kansas City office features four agents at the door of a woman on her porch holding a child's hand.
The woman is Mariana Alexandra Dewey, a Peruvian national charged with four voter fraud-related counts, including voting in the 2024 election.
The Justice Department announced Monday that more than 20 green card holders were arrested by Homeland Security Investigations agents in California for allegedly registering or voting illegally. One man, a 72-year-old man from Belize, was removed from his home in his pajamas, according to CBS. He is accused of voting illegally in the last four elections.
DHS responded to the reports on X Wednesday by quote-posting the CBS article. They stated that HSI "is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found."
"Under President Trump, HSI is committed to restoring integrity to our election systems and ensuring that American citizens, and only American citizens, are electing American leaders," the department said.
In June, DHS instructed ICE to assist in deporting noncitizens who vote in American elections. It estimates as many as 250,000 noncitizens are registered to vote, an estimate that election experts say is wildly inaccurate.
The Justice Department reported that 156 people have been charged for voting fraud-related offenses since the beginning of the Trump administration. There are approximately 227 million registered voters in the country.
Critics argue that the door-to-door visits may discourage eligible voters. Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, a left-leaning group that is suing DHS over the campaign, said that the initiative "seems maximally designed to scare lawful voters from participating." She referenced Nevada, where DHS flagged nearly 16,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls but could not produce a single illegal registration.
Eric Balliet, a former HSI agent with 23 years of service, told CBS of never hearing of agents being dispatched to homes to check voter eligibility.
A DHS spokesperson stated that individuals who are in the country legally and not violating any other laws "have nothing to fear."
