DHS Investigated More Than 150 Nonprofits in Hunt for Noncitizen Voters, Documents Show

Documents obtained by Democracy Forward through a public-records request, reported by The New York Times on October 7, 2026, show DHS investigated more than 150 nonprofits hunting for noncitizens on voter rolls, including 82 groups in Pennsylvania -- among them the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- and about 44 in New Jersey. DHS's election-integrity lead supplied 48.4 million records of unspecified origin; the department separately obtained 50 million-plus records from the Justice Department. A June memo shows DHS considered undercover agents to "disrupt activities" at the groups.

Critics called the effort an attempt to intimidate voter-registration organizations rather than a genuine fraud inquiry; a CAIR Philadelphia director said the group's work "follows all applicable voter registration rules." The probe follows a DHS claim, which Nevada officials said DHS itself later called unsubstantiated, that 250,000-plus noncitizens were on rolls in four states. Noncitizen voting is rare and unshown to sway a US election. DHS said it is "actively rooting out" fraud.