USCIS shifts anti-fraud officers to refugee and voter screening

Asylum officer training loses FDNS instructors, message says

The Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) inside US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has been shifted full-time to two “high-priority” initiatives, according to internal correspondence seen by the Guardian.

An internal message sent Monday said “All FDNS IOs [immigration officers] have been reassigned full-time to one of two high-priority USCIS initiatives (South African refugee screening and unlawful voter screening),” and added: “Because of this, we will not have the ability to assign IO’s [immigration officers] to the training portfolio for the near future.”

USCIS sits within the Department of Homeland Security, which has led the administration’s immigration enforcement during President Trump’s second term. USCIS did not respond to a request for comment.

FDNS is the unit responsible for detecting fraud and national security concerns in immigration benefit applications, including asylum claims. Its officers work with asylum officers to identify cases requiring further investigation, refer matters to law enforcement, and help asylum officers identify potential fraud and other risk markers.

The message addresses only the agency’s ability to provide officers for asylum officer training; it does not say whether routine screening of pending asylum applications has also slowed or stopped. A disruption to training would limit specialized instruction for asylum officers, and a broader slowdown in casework would have more direct consequences for pending applications. The Guardian has not independently confirmed whether routine screening has been affected.

The processing of asylum claims has largely ground to a halt during the Trump administration, leaving many asylum seekers without resolved claims.

The South African refugee screening priority is part of the administration’s bid to sharply curtail US refugee resettlement while prioritizing South Africans, primarily Afrikaners, whom US officials say face racial discrimination and “white genocide,” a claim the South African government has rejected as unfounded and politically motivated.

The most recent State Department report on refugees shows that of 10,258 refugees admitted to the US between 1 October 2025 and 31 July 2026, 10,255 were from South Africa. The remaining three were Afghans admitted in November.

The second priority — screening for “unlawful voters” — appears to be part of a broader administration effort to identify noncitizens alleged to have registered or voted in US elections. Experts, per the Guardian, have expressed skepticism of the president’s claim that this is a significant problem.

Confirmed instances of noncitizen voting have been found to be rare: a February 2026 review by the Center for Election Innovation and Research identified roughly 35 such cases nationwide in the 2024 general election, out of about 154 million votes cast.

In July, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the department had identified “over 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote” in California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but it later emerged that the confirmed number was far lower.

USCIS has already moved to bar naturalization for green card holders who voted or registered to vote, and to pursue removal proceedings against them. A presidential executive order in March 2025 opened USCIS’s database to state election officials, fueling investigations in several states into noncitizens accused of casting ballots.