ICE is investigating voter registration groups — and turning to election conspiracy theorists for help

ICE is investigating voter registration groups — and turning to election conspiracy theorists for help Newly published internal documents reveal Trump administration is targeting nonprofits in massive voter fraud probe - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Already a member? Log in While the Trump administration works to restrict ballot access before the midterms, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s criminal investigation arm is probing voter registration groups and may be using undercover agents to “disrupt” their activities, according to internal government documents. Federal immigration authorities have been tasked with trying to “dismantle illicit facilitation networks” accused of registering noncitizens to vote, according to the documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by legal advocacy group Democracy Forward and shared with The Independent. Documents show that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division obtained more than 48 million records from Heather Honey, a right-wing election activist who supported President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. She now serves as a deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at the Department of Homeland Security. Honey’s “independent sources of information” are being used as a “strategic line of effort” to target alleged noncitizen voters, according to the documents. The records “should concern all Americans and is further evidence of an alarming attempt by the executive branch to undermine our elections,” according to a statement from Democracy Forward president Skye Perryman. “It appears the president and his allies want to pick their voters, as opposed to the way things are supposed to function in a democracy where voters pick their leaders.” The Department of Justice has ramped up prosecutions of alleged noncitizen voters in recent weeks and touting the cases as alleged evidence of widespread fraud that is manipulating election outcomes. But the disclosure of investigations shows that the administration is looking beyond individual voters and targeting voting rights groups and other organizations that help people register to vote, which critics have labeled a tactic to suppress voter turnout and intimidate eligible voters. The Independent has requested comment from Homeland Security. Records reveal ICE has been increasingly focused on voter registration efforts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including the Pennsylvania chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights groups. ICE also has obtained more than 26,000 records from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and more than 50 million voter roll records from the Justice Department, according to the documents. State voter roll data may also have been entered into Palantir’s ELITE app, which ICE uses to identify potential targets for arrest and removal from the country, the records reveal. Documents suggest that ICE may also be looking into voting machines and election software, frequent targets of election conspiracy theorists who allege the companies who make them are conspiring with Democratic officials or manipulating results. ICE is investigating “trends, vulnerabilities, or indicators” that “may impact election integrity,” according to the documents. The filings reveal “chilling new insights into the breadth and depth” of the Trump administration’s attempts to bolster widespread election fraud claims “and assert greater federal control over elections ahead of the 2026 midterms,” according to Democracy Forwards’s senior oversight counsel Hart Wood. The records also reveal Heather Honey’s influence within a sprawling, massively funded federal agency. Before she was tapped as Trump’s “election integrity” chief, Heather Honey reportedly told a group of right-wing activists in March 2025 that the president could declare a “national emergency” to effectively take control of local election administration. She said the move would follow an “actual investigation” of the 2020 election, if it revealed “manipulation” of the results, according to The New York Times, which obtained a recording of the call. “We have some additional powers that don’t exist right now,” she said. “[W]e can take these other steps without Congress and we can mandate that states do things and so on.” Honey — a protege of prominent election conspiracy theorist Cleta Mitchell — alarmed state election officials last year during a call where she reportedly infused a discussion about voting safeguards with rhetoric that echoed right-wing conspiracy theories. On a call with the National Association of Secretaries of State Elections Committee, Honey allegedly complained that Homeland Security employees tasked with combating election misinformation had “strayed from their mission” and mentioned a report routinely touted by conspiracy theorists to support bogus claims that voting machines were rigged to favor Democrats. In the months that followed, the president has mounted an aggressive effort to try to centralize control of elections — a move that has dovetailed with his aggressive, government-wide efforts to deport tens of thousands of people from the country. Trump has pushed Republicans in Congress to pass legislation that would upend how states register people to vote online or through automatic or same-day registration. That measure, the SAVE America Act, is stalled out in the Senate and faces a diminishing chance of passage before midterms. The Supreme Court has also blocked the president’s attempts to implement sweeping new rules for mail-in ballots, an unprecedented takeover that election officials feared would wrongly disenfranchise tens of thousands of people while giving mail carriers unprecedented authority to decide who gets to cast a vote. Voting rights advocates and state election officials are bracing for the Trump administration’s last-ditch efforts to assume control of election administration amid growing fears of federal agents swarming the polls. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments [Image text:] POLICE ICE POLICE IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT