DHS escalated deportation pursuit of noncitizens on voter rolls, including inadvertent, non-fraudulent registrants

On August 10, 2026, The Seattle Times reported that the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security has intensified its pursuit of deportation against noncitizens found on voter rolls, targeting registrants even when registration was inadvertent and no ballot was ever cast. Homeland Security agents are reopening closed voter-fraud cases and investigating voter-registration efforts in major cities; customs officers have detained immigrants suspected of being on the voter rolls at border checkpoints; and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has placed green-card holders who disclosed old registrations during citizenship interviews into removal proceedings.

Washington state resident Abdullah Emre Basar learned he was on the voter rolls only when an immigration officer told him so during his citizenship interview; he had been registered in 2014 after visiting a motor-vehicle office to update his address, and Spokane County election records show no ballot was ever cast under his registration. The government denied his citizenship application and placed him into removal proceedings in April 2026, according to a court filing cited in the report. A second case, Altagracia White of Woodbury, New Jersey, said she similarly learned of her registration only after applying for citizenship; the government has since moved to deport her, citing a 2020 mail ballot county records show was cast under her name, which White denies sending.

The shift departs from past practice: immigration attorneys and a former senior USCIS official said officers previously weighed intent, age, and mental capacity before treating a registration as grounds for removal, but "now officers have very limited discretion," and denials and removal proceedings based on voting are occurring more frequently. DHS has coordinated with the Justice Department, which has pushed prosecutors to file more charges against noncitizen voters, while Homeland Security Investigations agents — normally assigned to transnational crime — have been redirected to voter-fraud work, including a June 2026 raid, alongside FBI agents, on the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a voter-registration group. A separate CNN investigation found an internal DHS memo directing Homeland Security Investigations agents to coordinate with USCIS to open removal proceedings whenever a noncitizen is suspected of or linked to voter fraud, formalizing the practice described in the named cases.