Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been knocking on residents’ doors across several US states to question people about their immigration status and whether they have registered to vote or cast ballots in past elections, according to a CBS News report .
Data matching raises concerns
The presence of armed federal agents at homes has raised concerns among civil rights advocates and legal experts, who warn that the operation could intimidate eligible voters and discourage participation in elections. The operation aims to investigate potential noncitizen voting ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections . DHS has alleged that as many as 250,000 noncitizens could be illegally registered to vote, although election experts have disputed the accuracy of the figure. 156 people have been charged with voting-fraud-related offences since the beginning of the Trump administration, according to the Department of Justice. The US has around 227 million registered voters. A USCIS whistleblower said in September that employees were asked to review voter information for tens of thousands of people, including citizens, with a target of 40 subjects per day. On October 21, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, urged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to halt activity he said could intimidate the public during the midterm election season.
“What we’re seeing now is the federal government is inserting itself into the state process for verifying their voter roles in an unprecedented way,” Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, which is suing the federal agency over the campaign, told CBS News.
