Senators set September 21 deadline for DHS, USCIS response
The whistleblower, who is a client of the Democracy Defenders Fund, submitted the disclosure to Padilla, D-Calif., last week. Padilla released the 40-page document at a Capitol Hill press conference on Monday, joined by Schumer.
According to the complaint, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services investigators are being directed to misrepresent themselves as voters, or as representatives authorized by voters, in order to obtain personal information from state voter-registration websites. They then compare that information with USCIS records to determine whether the person is a U.S. citizen and whether they may have lawfully registered to vote or cast a ballot, the disclosure states.
The whistleblower alleged that the effort may have already resulted in thousands of violations of state laws, and that the access to voter information is itself unlawful. Investigators are required to review at least 40 people per day, a quota that the complaint says leaves roughly 12 minutes per subject to determine citizenship, voting status and whether to open a federal law-enforcement record — a record the whistleblower warns may be based on unreliable data.
In a joint statement, Padilla and Schumer said: “If unreliable DHS data is used to generate purported evidence of ‘unlawful voters,’ that could disenfranchise eligible voters or disrupt state and local election administration.”
At Monday’s press conference, Padilla said the records being sought include registration status, political party and voting history — categories that, he said, Trump has sought since 2017. He placed the new effort in the context of Justice Department attempts to force states to hand over voting records, which he said courts have rejected more than 30 times.
“But when the front door is locked, Trump tries to break in the back door, and now he has USCIS officers combining the data that they are getting with other DHS data that they recognize and they admit is unreliable,” Padilla said. “They are doing this to build cases against individuals at the rate of five cases per hour. That’s their charge. That’s their quota.” He added that they are combining unreliable data with data illegally obtained to manufacture allegations that misidentify people as unlawful voters.
Schumer, in a separate statement, called the initiative “nothing more than an unlawful order by the government to silence the voices of Americans.” He added: “The Department of Homeland Security is sending hundreds of officers who should be focused on our security on a wild goose chase to prove Trump’s long-debunked election conspiracy theories — and DHS is telling officers to lie to do it.”
The complaint describes a rapid rollout. According to the disclosure, on Aug. 21, hundreds of USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate personnel were instructed to stop their other duties and watch a training video on how to access sensitive voter information. Four days later, on Aug. 25, those investigators began what the complaint characterizes as the federal hunt for unlawful voters.
The New York Times reported last month that hundreds of Department of Homeland Security agents were being surged to a task force directed at finding noncitizens registered to vote, despite a lack of evidence of widespread noncitizen voting fraud. Padilla and Schumer alleged in their joint statement that the new surge appears designed to manufacture evidence for Trump’s claims, and that DHS is using federal law-enforcement resources to circumvent judicial rulings that have blocked the administration from seizing states’ voter data directly.
The disclosure further alleges that investigators are instructed to break state laws where applicable, using personally identifiable information from DHS data on state government websites and claiming to be either the voter or someone the voter has authorized to obtain the records. Some states, including Virginia, require proof of authorization to access voter information under penalty of law. Padilla and Schumer’s report on the disclosure characterized the conduct as appearing to constitute “a clear-cut violation of state laws regarding access to individual voter information” and as raising “serious questions about federal privacy laws and data policies as well.”
Padilla and Schumer have asked DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow to answer a series of questions raised by the disclosure no later than Sept. 21. They are also directing the agencies to stop the initiative and remove any records it has generated. UPI reported that it had contacted DHS and USCIS for comment.
Celina Stewart, chief executive of the League of Women Voters of the United States, said in a statement: “If these reports are true, this is not merely alarming. It is a five-alarm fire for American democracy. Allegations that federal workers were pressured to fabricate evidence and falsely frame citizens as criminals strike at the heart of the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Trump, who has falsely maintained that he won the 2020 election, has repeatedly expressed concerns over election integrity since returning to the White House and has advanced efforts that Democrats and democracy and civil-rights advocates describe as voter-disenfranchising, including the administration’s unsuccessful effort to compel states to turn over their citizens’ voter data. Trump has been increasingly focused on the November midterms and has warned Republicans that if they lose the House he could face impeachment.