The Trump administration is intensifying efforts to identify and deport noncitizens who registered to vote, including green card holders who say they enrolled inadvertently and people who never cast a ballot, according to The New York Times.
Homeland Security agents are reopening previously closed voter fraud investigations, examining voter-registration drives and detaining some immigrants suspected of appearing on voter rolls. Green card holders have also been placed in removal proceedings after their voter registration was discovered during citizenship applications.
The approach represents a shift from previous administrations, when immigration officials had greater discretion to consider whether registration was accidental, according to former officials and immigration attorneys. Federal law prohibits noncitizens from registering or voting in federal elections, but studies and state audits have repeatedly found such voting to be rare.
One Washington resident, Abdullah Emre Basar, told The New York Times that he learned during his naturalization process that he had been registered since a 2014 visit to a motor vehicle office. Election records showed he never cast a ballot, according to the outlet, but the government denied his citizenship application and placed him in removal proceedings.
"Now officers have very limited discretion, and I am hearing that denials and removal proceedings based on voting are happening more frequently," former senior U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official Michael Valverde told the outlet.
The effort is part of a broader push by the administration to expand federal involvement in election administration. The Justice Department has sought voter rolls from dozens of states, while Homeland Security has encouraged states to compare voter records against SAVE, a federal immigration database. Some state reviews have found that the system incorrectly identified U.S. citizens as potential noncitizens.
The administration has also used declassified intelligence and federal agencies to revive President Donald Trump's claims about vulnerabilities and fraud in U.S. elections. During a July 16 White House address, Trump alleged that China had interfered in the 2020 election and cited a DHS review claiming hundreds of thousands of noncitizens were registered to vote. Independent reviews have found no evidence that foreign governments altered the 2020 result, while documented noncitizen voting remains rare.
Trump has used those claims to promote legislation requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and tighter restrictions on mail voting. The House has approved such legislation, but it has stalled in the Senate.
