The Trump administration deployed hundreds of Department of Homeland Security agents to hunt down voter fraud despite a lack of evidence, sparking alarm among experts.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported the nationwide "blitz" to look for noncitizens among registered voters nationwide despite no evidence of widespread fraud. The Times reviewed documents and training videos that revealed that agents are scouring voter rolls managed by states.
DHS whistleblower and expert Miles Taylor has already sounded the alarm on "woefully unequipped" agents being assigned in the weeks ahead of midterms and warned it could lead to "catastrophe." According to The Times, DHS agents are using personally identifiable information about voters, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, to look for noncitizens on voter rolls and, in some cases, effectively posing as individual voters.
Other experts on immigration policy reacted with shock and alarm over the sudden move. The DHS deployment comes the same week that a U.S. Postal Service whistleblower disclosed that a rushed, untested mail-ballot system could reject entire batches of ballots, potentially thousands at a time, if even a single ballot fails verification.
Immigration policy expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick reacted to the news of the DHS deployment by writing in a post on X by explaining that it means diverting agents from their real jobs.
"Hundreds of federal agents are being diverted away from their jobs going after serious criminals and instead told to find needles in a haystack — all to find evidence for Trump's predetermined conclusions," Reichlin-Melnick wrote. "It's a great time to be a criminal in Trump's America."
"Great time to be a criminal in America," agreed former GOP congressman Joe Walsh.
Former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agent Sarah Pierce also explained the implications of the deployment in a post on X, as did other former DHS officials.
"From 2011-2024, DHS's Homeland Security Investigations made 467,000 criminal arrests, rescued 12,000 kids from exploitation, & secured 3,400+ human trafficking convictions," Pierce wrote. "Under this admin? Wild goose chases. And they can't argue otherwise because they're delaying HSI's data."
"Every agent that's being forced into this witch-hunt means one less agent working on critical missions like curbing the flow of fentanyl into the country or stopping human trafficking and combating terrorism, etc." warned former DHS deputy assistant secretary for immigration policy Daniel Delgado. "The administration is deliberately making America less safe."