USAupdated 56m ago2 min read
DHS Federal Agents Knock on Doors To Investigate Noncitizen Voting Ahead of Midterms
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DHS agents knock on doors nationwide asking immigration status and voting history. Federal judge blocks DHS field operations for noncitizen voting over flawed data.
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Door knocks and charges
Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security knocked on doors in several states to ask residents about their immigration status and whether they had registered to vote or cast votes in past elections, as CBS News Investigation found. DHS alleged there could be as many as 250,000 citizens illegally registered to vote, while the Department of Justice said Just 156 people have been charged with voting-fraud related offenses since the beginning of the Trump administration.
DHS spokesperson said, "HSI is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found," as the agency pursued possible noncitizen voters ahead of the midterms. Eric Balliet, a former Homeland Security Investigations agent, said, "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."
Judge blocks nine-state effort
A federal judge in California ruled late Wednesday that the US Department of Homeland Security violated the Voting Rights Act by sending agents door-to-door and demanding information about immigration status and whether people had voted in recent elections, according to Common Dreams. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin ordered federal agents to end their "elections-related field operations and field interviews" in nine states, including California, New York, Missouri, Connecticut, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.
The judge wrote that DHS used data that was "voluminous and unreliable," and the ruling barred DHS from carrying out operations if they were likely to involve interrogations of people whom agency officials "know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are US citizens." Beau Tremitiere, counsel at Protect Democracy, told CBS News, "It was clear from the start that DHS built its lists on bad data, never checked how often it was wrong, and recklessly sent agents to people's homes weeks before an election."
Fear, data errors, and impact
The judge said the DHS effort threatened the participation of National Nurses United and California Nurses Association, and the ruling cited the "public’s interest in safe elections, free from interference or intimidation" as exceeding defendants’ interest in combating unlawful voting by non-US citizens. The order also pointed to the risk that armed officers deployed to people’s homes could make some members of the organizations who sued afraid to "mobilize, educate and assist voters," according to Straight Arrow.
Straight Arrow said the judge found DHS data included "48.2 million records" from "independent sources of questionable provenance" and "50.6 million records" from official state voter roll data from the Department of Justice. DHS told Newsweek it was committed to restoring integrity to election systems, and a spokesperson said, "HSI will continue to investigate election fraud," even as the court restricted elections-related field operations.