Watchdog Launches Investigation Following Report Trump USCIS is Illegally Accessing State Voter Data

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, American Oversight launched an investigation into U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking records that could shed light on an effort a federal whistleblower says may have already resulted in thousands of violations of state law.

The investigation follows a whistleblower disclosure that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Alex Padilla made public on September 14, obtained by the nonprofit Democracy Defenders Fund. According to the disclosure, USCIS directed officers in its Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) to misrepresent themselves as voters on state election agency websites in order to search individuals’ registration and voting records — conduct that could violate laws in several states that criminalize accessing another voter’s record without authorization.

The whistleblower alleges that FDNS officers were assigned a 40-person-per-day review quota after a single training session lasting under two hours, leaving them only a few minutes to resolve complex questions of citizenship, identity, and voting history for each person reviewed. The same training reportedly told employees that some of the data feeding the initiative had been compiled through “supplemental magic” — a term USCIS has not yet explained. Officials have nonetheless allegedly directed staff to use that data to open federal law enforcement records against individuals identified as potential “unlawful voters,” including naturalized U.S. citizens.

“The whistleblower’s allegations raise serious concerns that USCIS instructed officers to break the law in order to manufacture a voter fraud crisis using data its own officials call unreliable,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight. “The Trump administration should immediately provide information about its initiative and how it intends to use any data collected. If federal agents were directed to misrepresent themselves to access state voter records and meet a daily quota for flagging Americans — including naturalized citizens — for potential investigation, it could threaten the ability of eligible voters to exercise their rights, just weeks before voters go to the polls.”

The initiative comes after the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been unsuccessful in court in its effort to obtain unredacted voter rolls from roughly 30 states and the District of Columbia. It also follows a pattern of DHS officials making public claims about noncitizen voting that were later significantly revised downward in private: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin publicly claimed that as many as 15,903 noncitizens may be registered to vote in Nevada, but department officials later told state officials that only 185 individuals had been identified as “potential” noncitizens.

In launching its investigation, American Oversight filed FOIA requests with DHS and USCIS seeking email communications sent by senior DHS and USCIS officials, training materials distributed to USCIS personnel about the initiative, records reflecting the review quotas assigned to FDNS officers, communications with state election offices in 20 states, and records sufficient to identify the sources and types of data used in the initiative.

The public has a significant interest in understanding how the federal government is using personal voter data and immigration records to investigate Americans ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Transparency into the sourcing, accuracy, and legal basis of the “Unlawful Voter Initiative” will help ensure that federal law enforcement resources are not being used to manufacture unreliable evidence of voter fraud or intimidate eligible voters, including naturalized citizens, based on flawed data and rushed review.

This investigation builds on American Oversight’s ongoing work scrutinizing the Trump administration’s collection and use of sensitive voter data, including a lawsuit against ICE and DOJ over records regarding how voter information is shared with federal immigration enforcement channels.