DHS Secretary Kristi Noem
Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly launched a nationwide initiative directing agents to investigate naturalized citizens who may have voted before obtaining citizenship, according to internal documents and people familiar with the plan.
The program, run through Homeland Security Investigations, instructs field offices to review both open and closed cases involving suspected illegal voting by noncitizens and determine whether individuals registered or cast ballots before they were citizens.
The directive, titled "Potential Voter Fraud – Denaturalization" and first reviewed by MS NOW, cites an executive order on election integrity and calls for agents to identify cases that could lead to criminal charges.
Investigators are also asked to report instances in which they decline to prosecute, according to people familiar with the policy, though an administration official disputed that characterization. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the outlet that the effort reflects "continuing efforts to implement the President's Executive Order... by identifying individuals who appear to have broken the law," adding that "noncitizens voting is a crime."
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Officials say the initiative expands earlier efforts that targeted suspected illegal voting by noncitizens. According to one former official, more than 1,000 names were previously provided to investigators with expectations that prosecutions would follow. The new directive appears to broaden that scope to include people who later became citizens but may have voted beforehand, conduct that could expose them to charges or denaturalization.
Voting experts and government analyses have repeatedly found that such cases are rare. One review of 49.5 million registrations, cited by The New York Times, identified about 10,000 for further investigation, roughly 0.02 percent.
Still, the administration has argued that stricter enforcement is necessary to ensure confidence in elections. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recently said her department's role is to make sure "we have the right people voting," though when asked to cite specific fraud cases she replied: "oh, I'm sure there's many of them."
The initiative is being coordinated in part by senior White House officials, including advisers involved in immigration and election policy.
Trump has also recently suggested a more sweeping federal role in election administration, saying in an interview earlier this month that he would consider a federal takeover of some state-run elections because of what he described as the threat of illegal voting by noncitizens.
The Constitution grants states primary authority over administering elections, but the president has argued that national intervention could be warranted to ensure what he calls "totally accurate" voter rolls, a position that has intensified debate among legal scholars and election officials over the scope of federal power in voting oversight.
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Tags: Department of Homeland Security, Voting rights, Naturalization