Armed agents visit homes to find noncitizen voters

Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security, armed and in uniform, have knocked on doors in several states asking residents about immigration status and voter registration.

DHS claims up to two hundred fifty thousand illegal registrations

The Department of Homeland Security has alleged there could be as many as two hundred fifty thousand citizens illegally registered to vote, though election experts have disputed this figure's accuracy.

Actual voter fraud convictions remain rare

Just one hundred fifty six people have been charged with voting fraud related offenses since the beginning of the Trump administration, according to the Department of Justice.

Critics warn armed visits intimidate legal voters

Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, says the federal government is inserting itself into state voter verification in an unprecedented way designed to scare lawful voters from participating.

“And they are doing it in a way that seems maximally designed to scare lawful voters from participating.”

Agents arrest more than twenty green card holders in California

The Justice Department announced Monday that Homeland Security agents in California arrested more than twenty people, all green card holders, on allegations they had illegally registered or cast a vote.

Seventy two year old arrested in pajamas at home

Dozens of federal agents descended on the residence of a seventy two year old man from Belize, who was taken from his home in his pajamas and arrested on charges he allegedly voted illegally in…

Operation is unprecedented departure from normal law enforcement

Eric Balliet, a former Homeland Security Investigations agent with twenty three years of service, said he never engaged in or was aware of any initiative that sent agents to private residences to verify voter eligibility.

“In my 23 years with HSI, I never engaged in or was aware of any incident or initiative that sent Special Agents to private residences to verify the eligibility of voters.”

Hundreds of agents pulled from criminal investigations

Hundreds of agents were pulled off their cases and assigned to track down alleged noncitizen voters as part of a surge initiative in at least six states including California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

Data matching process uses broad target lists

DHS pulls from internal databases, voter rolls and other datasets, then attempts to match names against citizenship data provided by the U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Nevada case shows unreliability of matching process

Homeland Security officials initially said they had identified nearly sixteen thousand noncitizens on Nevada's voter rolls, but ultimately they were unable to provide evidence of a single illegally registered voter, raising concerns about false positives.

“There's every reason to expect that there are many, many more false positives in these lists.”