Armed DHS agents are knocking on doors to ask about voting, CBS News reports

As of 3:12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026

Armed, uniformed federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been knocking on doors in several states to ask residents about their immigration status and whether they have registered to vote or cast votes in past elections, CBS News reported Wednesday in an investigation by Madeleine May.

The operation is part of an effort to find potential noncitizen voters ahead of the midterm elections, CBS News reported. The home visits ramped up in September and continued over the past weekend, according to CBS.

Agents pulled from other cases

Hundreds of agents were pulled off their cases and assigned to track down alleged noncitizen voters as part of a "surge" initiative, according to internal documents reviewed by CBS News. The directive, first reported by CNN, describes a "Criminal Voter Fraud" initiative that includes "field reviews" in at least six states, including California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, CBS reported.

Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, the agency conducting the home visits, is one of the enforcement arms of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. CBS News reported that HSI typically focuses on criminal cross-border investigations such as child exploitation, drug smuggling and money laundering. In June, DHS directed ICE to assist in deportations of alleged noncitizen voters, according to CBS.

Photos and videos posted on X show HSI agents, some of them carrying firearms, approaching houses and knocking on doors under captions such as "AMERICAN ELECTIONS ARE FOR AMERICANS," CBS reported. In one video, agents are filmed holding a document that says "Target List."

The numbers

DHS has alleged that there could be as many as 250,000 people illegally registered to vote, CBS News reported, adding that election experts have disputed the accuracy of that figure.

"Just 156 people have been charged with voting-fraud related offenses since the beginning of the Trump administration, according to the Department of Justice," CBS News reported. There are 227 million registered voters in the U.S., according to CBS.

What DHS says

"HSI is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found," a DHS spokesperson said, according to CBS News. "Under President Trump, HSI is committed to restoring integrity to our election systems and ensuring that American citizens and only American citizens are electing American leaders."

A DHS spokesperson also said, "DHS and DOJ are laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens… Those who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear," CBS reported.

How the "Target List" is built

An HSI agent familiar with the initiative, who asked to speak anonymously, told CBS News the list can be far-reaching. DHS pulls from internal databases, voter rolls and other datasets, and employees then attempt to match names against citizenship data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, CBS reported.

In September, a USCIS whistleblower said employees were asked to review the voter information of tens of thousands of people across the country, including citizens, according to CBS. Employees were given quotas to investigate 40 subjects a day, a rate of roughly 12 minutes per subject, CBS reported.

DHS has defended the data-matching program and USCIS's work to identify potential noncitizen voters, CBS reported. "Far from being rushed or untrained, these investigative efforts are conducted diligently and professionally," a DHS spokesperson said. "There is no quota on criminality. DHS will pursue each and every illegal voter to the fullest extent of the law."

A lawsuit and critics

Protect Democracy, an advocacy group, is suing the federal agency over the door-knocking campaign, CBS News reported. Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for the group, told CBS the federal government "is inserting itself into the state process" for verifying voter rolls "in an unprecedented way." She added: "And they are doing it in a way that seems maximally designed to scare lawful voters from participating."

"There's every reason to expect that there are many, many more false positives in these lists," Marsden said, according to CBS. She noted that Homeland Security officials initially said they had identified nearly 16,000 noncitizens on Nevada's voter rolls but ultimately were unable to provide evidence of a single illegally registered voter, CBS reported.

Eric Balliet, a former Homeland Security Investigations agent who served under multiple administrations, told CBS the operation is a significant departure from traditional law enforcement activities. "In my 23 years with HSI, I never engaged in or was aware of any … initiative that sent Special Agents to private residences to verify the eligibility of voters," he said.

Carol Anderson, a professor of African American Studies at Emory University, told CBS: "It is sending the signal to a much broader community, do not show up at the polls. Do not vote."

The California arrests

CBS noted that the Justice Department announced Monday that Homeland Security agents in California had arrested more than 20 people, all of them green card holders, on allegations that they illegally registered or cast a vote. As part of that roundup, dozens of federal agents went to the home of a 72-year-old man from Belize, who was arrested on charges that he voted illegally in the past four elections, CBS reported. He is accused, not convicted.

GROKsiNEWS.com reported on those California charges on Monday: DOJ charges 28 in California sweep targeting alleged noncitizen voting.