ICE Accused of Trying to Silence Voters After Obtaining 50.6 Million Voter Records From Justice Department

Democracy Forward has accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of trying to silence eligible voters ahead of the 2026 US midterms. It cites documents detailing the agency's acquisition of 50.6 million voter roll records from the Justice Department for fraud investigations.

The disclosure followed the group's April 2026 request under the Freedom of Information Act concerning ICE's role in the forthcoming elections and voting. In response, the agency provided 166 pages, including weekly reports on alleged fraudulent voting activities shared with ICE leadership, according to the organisation.

ICE Receives Records From Multiple Sources

The records concern Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), ICE's principal criminal investigative arm within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). HSI also obtained 48.4 million records, the watchdog reports, from what were described as Heather Honey's 'independent sources of information'.

The watchdog identifies Honey as a senior adviser to the ICE director and senior counsel to the DHS secretary, and describes her as a 2020 election denier. It links the acquisition to a 'strategic line of effort' to pursue voter fraud investigations.

HSI also obtained 26,235 records derived from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to Democracy Forward's account. It identifies Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas among priority states associated with the datasets.

'The information revealed in the documents should concern all Americans and is further evidence of an alarming attempt by the executive branch to undermine our elections. It appears the president and his allies want to pick their voters, as opposed to the way things are supposed to function in a democracy where voters pick their leaders,' stated the organisation's president and CEO, Skye Perryman.

Undercover Proposals Put ICE Scrutiny on Registration Groups

The watchdog also reports that HSI considered deploying undercover agents to investigate non-profits the administration suspected of registering non-citizens to vote. New Jersey and Pennsylvania were priorities for that work.

According to its account, HSI appeared to be identifying organisations involved in voter registration through non-profit search engines before seeking 'derogatory information' in other databases. The group characterises the proposed scrutiny as politically motivated.

Its account does not establish that undercover agents were deployed or that the organisations committed voter fraud.

ICE Election Files Raise Deportation Database Questions

Questions also concern whether state voter roll data entered Palantir's ELITE app, which ICE employs to identify, prioritise and locate people for deportation. Whether that transfer occurred remains unconfirmed.

The watchdog also suggests HSI may be investigating voting machines and seeking evidence of voter fraud in 'counties with 2020 results'. Neither activity is confirmed in its account.

The group reports that HSI is monitoring primary elections for 'trends, vulnerabilities, or indicators' that it claims could affect election integrity. It also describes coordination with the US Postal Inspection Service in pursuing voter fraud cases.

'This trove of ICE documents provides chilling new insights into the breadth and depth of the Trump-Vance administration's efforts to pursue baseless claims of widespread election fraud and assert greater federal control over elections ahead of the 2026 midterms,' stated Hart Wood, Democracy Forward's senior oversight counsel.

In its statement, the organisation reports issuing more than 3,630 FOIA requests over the preceding 20 months and filing 45 lawsuits to compel disclosure of withheld federal records.