Homeland Security Investigations
Homeland Security Investigations is the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, responsible for investigating transnational crime including human trafficking, narcotics, financial crimes, and cybercrimes. It operates domestically and through attache offices internationally. In 2025-26 HSI conducted immigration enforcement operations including raids targeting voter registration data held by county governments.
Also known as HSI
2026 Events (12)
DHS launched criminal voter-fraud investigation surge across nine states ahead of midterms
On September 1, 2026, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, through Secretary Markwayne Mullin, directed Homeland Security Investigations -- an ICE component that ordinarily handles trafficking, smuggling, and child-exploitation cases -- to begin a coordinated criminal voter-fraud investigation surge in nine states: Washington, Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, California, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York, and Connecticut. Internal DHS guidance reviewed by CNN directs field interviews and investigative leads through mid-October, timed to the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, even as the department's own internal records show it substantiated only 185 of the roughly 16,000 noncitizen voter registrations it had publicly claimed to find in Nevada.
ICE-led raid detained 100+ people at Memphis nightclub without individualized suspicion, witnesses said
Before dawn on August 30, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation conducted a raid at El Corralón, a bar in Memphis' Berclair neighborhood, detaining more than 100 patrons and employees and loading them onto buses and vans. Federal officials characterized the action as execution of a search warrant tied to a gambling-machine and drug investigation, but witnesses and advocacy groups said the operation swept up people regardless of individual involvement, separating parents from children. Memphis Police said they had no role in planning or executing the raid, responding only to assist with traffic and crowd control.
Injustice Watch investigation found Illinois police and sheriffs circumvented TRUST Act to help ICE detain, deport immigrants
Injustice Watch, in partnership with The Intercept, reported on 2026-08-25 that despite Illinois' 2017 TRUST Act barring local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration enforcement, officials at more than 75 agencies across over a third of the state's counties collaborated with the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, ICE, and the U.S. Marshals Service during Trump's first 15 months back in office. The investigation, drawing on body-worn camera footage, nearly 400 records requests, and court filings, found the collaboration -- direct data-sharing, jail-to-ICE handovers, and at least one FBI-coached arrest workaround -- helped flag, detain, or deport at least 150 people.
Injustice Watch/WIRED investigation found Illinois state's attorneys shared residents' personal data with ICE despite TRUST Act
An Injustice Watch investigation published August 25, 2026, in partnership with WIRED, found that state's attorneys' offices in roughly 1 in 6 Illinois counties shared residents' dates of birth, home addresses, court dates, and jail-release schedules with federal immigration agents despite the state's 2017 TRUST Act. In one documented case, a Marion County assistant state's attorney emailed a Homeland Security Investigations agent a defendant's birthdate, upcoming court date, and home address; federal agents arrested the man and detained his 17-year-old son outside their home three weeks later. State's attorneys disputed among themselves whether the TRUST Act binds their offices, and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul declined to resolve the question.
HSI infiltrated Minnesota unions and advocacy groups and subpoenaed financial records without judicial review during Operation Metro Surge
Court filings unsealed August 13, 2026 revealed that Homeland Security Investigations, coordinating with the Department of Justice, ran undercover surveillance operations codenamed "Operation Puppet Master" and "Operation Whipple Shield" during winter 2025-2026 as part of Operation Metro Surge, reaching far beyond the 15 activists eventually charged. Undercover agents infiltrated encrypted chats and organizing meetings, and HSI used administrative subpoenas to obtain years of financial records from labor unions and advocacy groups, none of which has been charged with a crime.
HSI agent covertly surveilled Rep. Ilhan Omar's town hall from vehicle with mismatched license plates
On the evening of August 6, 2026, an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent was found stationed outside Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D-MN) monthly town hall at the Richfield Community Center in Richfield, Minnesota, monitoring the building from a Ford Explorer carrying mismatched license plates. Richfield police grew suspicious, ran the plates, and confronted the agent, who first identified herself as event security before admitting she worked for HSI and was conducting an unrelated undercover operation with no advance coordination with local police. Omar sent an oversight letter to HSI's St. Paul field office demanding an explanation, citing a pattern of the administration using ICE to surveil political opponents.
DHS and DOT's 'Operation Highway Shield' detained 51 immigrant truckers, arrested 86 drivers across 4 Midwest states
DHS and the U.S. Department of Transportation ran "Operation Highway Shield," a three-day joint immigration and trucking-enforcement sweep from July 28-30, 2026, across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio. Federal agents detained 51 immigrants, including 21 holding non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses, placed 766 drivers and vehicles out of service, arrested 86 operators, and cited 36 drivers for failing English-language-proficiency tests. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the operation targeted "illegal aliens" and non-English-proficient truckers, the second wave of a program that began in Florida in March 2026.
DHS agents visited Rochester man's home and tracked him to NYC hotel over email criticizing ICE director
On June 23, 2026, Homeland Security Investigations agents visited the Rochester, New York home of David Streever while he was traveling in Finland, leaving his wife a warning notice that an email Streever had sent five months earlier to then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons constituted a "credible threat." Two days later, when Streever landed at JFK International Airport on his return, a Homeland Security Investigations agent tracked him to the airport hotel where he was staying and left a business card with the front desk. No criminal charges were filed; attorneys representing Streever called the federal visits unconstitutional government intimidation of protected political speech.
U.S. Attorney charges 15 Minnesota anti-ICE protesters as 'antifa,' invoking Trump's domestic-terrorist executive order
On June 16, 2026, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen and HSI Special Agent in Charge Michael McCarthy announced federal conspiracy charges against 15 members of Direct Action Minnesota (DAMN), framing them as "antifa" and explicitly tying the case to President Trump's September 2025 executive order designating antifa a domestic-terrorist organization. The lead charge — conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer — rested substantially on protest-organizing conduct including Signal communications, training sessions, and surveillance of federal vehicles. The announcement came days after DOJ dropped more than a third of its earlier Metro Surge assault cases for prosecutorial misconduct, with one judge barring re-prosecution to prevent "prosecutorial harassment."
ICE detains Iranian Ph.D. student Yousof Azizi and moves to deport him after BBC Persian commentary on U.S.–Iran war
Federal immigration agents detained Yousof Azizi, a 40-year-old Iranian Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Tech, outside his Germantown, Maryland home on April 13, 2026, and the Trump administration is moving to deport him. ICE has transferred him through facilities in Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona; his wife, his lawyers, and CAIR say the action is retaliation for his Persian-language media commentary on the U.S. war on Iran, while DHS says he misstated prior involvement with Iran's Student Basij Organization on his visa application and that his student visa was terminated after he failed to re-enroll at Virginia Tech for Fall 2025.
Homeland Security Investigations agents pepper-sprayed bystanders during Phoenix-area Zipps raids that arrested 39 workers
On January 26, 2026, Homeland Security Investigations agents served search warrants at 15 Zipps Sports Grill locations across the Phoenix metro area, arresting 39 workers, including a married couple who had worked at the chain for 18 years. As agents left several locations, they pepper-sprayed bystanders and protesters who had gathered to watch or object, including a woman in Tempe who was hospitalized; a police-procedures expert who reviewed video of one incident found no use-of-force justification for it.
ICE pepper-sprayed and detained two citizen legal observers in Minneapolis; one says HSI tried to recruit him as an informant
On the night of January 11-12, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in south Minneapolis pepper-sprayed the vehicle of two U.S. citizens conducting legal-observer work, Brandon Siguenza and Patricia O'Keefe, then smashed its windows and pulled them out despite their hands being raised -- an incident independently corroborated by neighbor-recorded video, according to a Snopes investigation -- arresting them for an "obstruction" charge that was never formally filed. The pair were held roughly eight hours at the Whipple Federal Building, where Siguenza says a Homeland Security Investigations agent offered him money and help bringing relatives into the country in exchange for the names of protest organizers and undocumented neighbors, which he refused; DHS disputed the account, calling any claim it offered money for information "FALSE" and alleging Siguenza and O'Keefe had themselves committed a felony by "stalking and obstructing ICE law enforcement." Upon release, agents directed Siguenza into a nearby area where tear gas was deployed and he was struck by a projectile.
2025 Events (1)
Trump directed U.S. forces to seize oil tanker Skipper off Venezuela, opening blockade campaign without congressional authorization
On December 10, 2025, U.S. forces seized the crude-oil tanker Skipper off the coast of Venezuela in a pre-dawn operation launched from the USS Gerald R. Ford, boarding the vessel with Coast Guard and Marine personnel under a DOJ civil-forfeiture warrant. President Trump announced the seizure at a White House event, declaring the U.S. would keep the roughly 1–2 million barrels of Venezuelan crude on board. The action — the first vessel seizure of a broader oil-blockade campaign — was carried out without congressional authorization; Venezuela condemned it as "an act of international piracy."