(UNITED STATES) — DHS launched a nationwide effort to investigate naturalized U.S. citizens who may have registered to vote or voted in U.S. elections before becoming citizens, widening a push that officials cast as election integrity enforcement but that critics warn could sweep up administrative mistakes.
Homeland Security Investigations, a DHS component, now mandates field offices to examine cases involving alleged pre-citizenship voting and registration, a shift that raises new risks for immigrants who later obtained citizenship and for those still pursuing immigration benefits.
The campaign has drawn attention because voter records and registration forms can intersect with immigration law, creating exposure for green card holders, international students, and temporary workers even when problems stem from paperwork, data lags, or mismatches.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem linked the effort to citizenship verification and federal authority at a news conference in Maricopa County, Arizona, on February 13, 2026. Noem said federal law allows DHS to take “mitigation measures” to ensure “we have the right people voting.”
Noem described past state election management as an “absolute disaster” and said her department has a role in verifying citizenship, even though states run elections.
The initiative follows Executive Order 14248, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” signed by the President in early 2025, as federal agencies deepen data-driven screening tied to voting eligibility.
USCIS Associate Chief David Jennings, speaking on February 13, 2026, described a fast rollout of expanded data-matching as “remarkable,” adding, “Kind of proud of it.”
A White House statement on February 18, 2026, framed the effort as criminal enforcement. “Noncitizen voting is a crime. Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable,” White House Spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, adding that voter rolls should be “free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters.”
An internal HSI memo released mid-February 2026, titled “Potential Voter Fraud – Denaturalization,” directs offices to review “all open and closed voter fraud cases” involving immigrants.
The memo also requires agents to submit reports to the White House detailing every instance where they decline to bring criminal charges, tightening oversight of investigative decisions.
HSI’s review extends to five federal statutes, including 18 U.S.C. § 1015 involving false claims of citizenship, along with registration and voter fraud provisions, as DHS expands investigative pipelines and referral practices.
Under U.S. law, only U.S. citizens may vote in federal elections, and registration forms typically require applicants to attest to citizenship status, often under penalty of perjury.
That link between civic systems and immigration adjudications matters because a voting-related record can become an immigration issue, including in decisions on admissibility, removability, and discretionary benefits, depending on the facts and what the paperwork shows.
Immigration lawyers and advocates have long warned that voter registration problems can arise during routine transactions, including driver’s license applications at DMVs, automatic voter registration systems, campus registration drives, and online address updates.
Name similarities, clerical errors, and outdated indicators can trigger false positives when agencies match voter rolls against immigration or identity databases, leaving individuals to sort out records that may not reflect their current status.
F-1 students, H-1B workers, green card holders, and people filing for adjustment of status can face particular exposure if a voter registration appears in their history, even if they did not understand they were ineligible.
A central tool in the current push involves expanded use of DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, known as SAVE, a database originally designed to verify immigration status for public benefits.
States increasingly use SAVE to cross-check voter rolls, and election officials have reported data errors in which citizens are incorrectly flagged as non-citizens, putting pressure on records that may not update at the same time across systems.
Citizenship updates can lag after naturalization, and records held by different agencies can refresh at different times, while name changes after marriage or naturalization can also produce mismatches during database comparisons.
DHS reports that more than 46 million voters were run through the SAVE system as of late 2025, as the program shifts toward a broader citizenship verification infrastructure.
As of February 2026, 27 states agreed to use the revamped system to screen their voter rolls against Social Security and passport data, expanding the scale of eligibility checks tied to citizenship.
Audits and reviews have repeatedly found little evidence of widespread illegal voting by immigrants, even as the issue remains politically charged.
One large screening effort flagged roughly 0.02% of records for further review after examining millions of voter records, and separate analyses reached similar conclusions about the lack of supporting evidence for large-scale non-citizen voting.
A Utah review of 2 million voters identified only one instance of noncitizen registration and zero instances of voting, an example cited in debates over how enforcement should balance deterrence with error rates.
Even with low apparent prevalence, DHS and USCIS have intensified attention on pre-citizenship voting because the strategy relies on data tools that can be applied at scale, and because election integrity remains a stated administration priority.
The approach carries different implications depending on immigration status, starting with naturalized U.S. citizens, who generally hold secure citizenship but can face denaturalization efforts if the government proves citizenship was obtained through fraud or misrepresentation.
For lawful permanent residents, voting as a non-citizen can trigger allegations such as a false claim to U.S. citizenship, and it can also appear in benefit adjudications and enforcement actions as a deportable immigration violation.
Temporary visa holders, including students and workers, can face downstream effects if records suggest improper registration or voting, including complications in visa renewals, changes of status, employment authorization, and future green card eligibility.
USCIS recently assisted in the indictment of two Pakistani nationals in New Jersey in January 2026 for illegally voting and making false statements on their naturalization applications, showing how voting-related allegations can pair with immigration-fraud charges.
Civil rights groups have challenged the emerging enforcement model as election administrators and federal agencies expand verification methods that critics say can misidentify eligible voters.
The League of Women Voters filed a federal lawsuit in Ohio on February 13, 2026 to stop voter roll purges, arguing that the SAVE and Social Security data used by DHS are “stale” and often misidentify naturalized citizens as non-citizens.
Alongside investigations, policy proposals have aimed to tighten the documentation required for voter registration, including the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register for federal elections.
Supporters argue stricter verification protects elections, while critics say the systems can burden naturalized citizens and lawful immigrants when database matches misfire or when citizenship updates lag behind real-world status.
The widening effort underscores a growing overlap between immigration enforcement, database-driven screening, and election administration as officials press for roll maintenance and citizenship verification.
For immigrants and future citizens, the practical risk can start with older transactions, especially DMV interactions and registration drives, that later surface in DHS or USCIS reviews during benefit filings or investigative contacts.
Immigration lawyers have urged people to avoid registering unless they are already U.S. citizens, to review registration status, to keep copies of immigration and naturalization documents, and to seek counsel if investigators make contact.
Jackson’s statement captured the administration’s posture as the program expands: “Noncitizen voting is a crime. Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable,” she said, while calling for rolls “free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters.”
DHS Targets Pre-Citizenship Voting by Naturalized U.S. Citizens
DHS is intensifying investigations into immigrants and naturalized citizens regarding past voter registration and participation. Driven by Executive Order 14248, the initiative uses expanded data-matching to identify potential fraud. While officials frame this as essential election integrity enforcement, advocates express concern that outdated database records and clerical mistakes at agencies like the DMV could lead to wrongful investigations and severe immigration consequences for eligible voters.
