HSI Agents Have Been Knocking on Doors in at Least Six States Asking About Immigration Status and Voting, CBS Investigation Finds

A CBS News investigation published Oct. 21 shows that the Justice Department's California arrests earlier this week belong to a larger operation: federal agents going door to door.

According to CBS, armed and uniformed agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) have been visiting residents in several states to ask about their immigration status and whether they registered or voted in past elections. The visits ramped up in September and continued over the past weekend.

What the internal documents describe

Internal documents CBS reviewed describe a "Criminal Voter Fraud" surge, with field reviews in at least six states: California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. CBS reports that agents are cross-referencing DHS databases and state voter rolls against citizenship records held by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In June, DHS directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help deport alleged noncitizen voters. HSI is one of ICE's enforcement arms and normally works cross-border cases such as child exploitation, drug smuggling and money laundering.

A USCIS whistleblower told CBS that employees were given quotas to review roughly 40 subjects a day, about 12 minutes per case. DHS has denied rushed work, saying investigations are conducted "diligently and professionally" and that there is "no quota on criminality."

HSI's accounts on X have posted photos of agents at doors under captions such as "AMERICAN ELECTIONS ARE FOR AMERICANS," CBS reported.

The California arrests

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced the California cases Monday, Oct. 19, under the name "Operation Protect the Vote." Outlets differ on the count: CBS reported more than 20 green card holders arrested, while the Daily Wire reported 28 foreigners arrested. Prosecutors say the defendants falsely claimed U.S. citizenship to register, and many cast ballots. Essayli said at least 11 were in custody that morning and the rest would follow. He also said the Justice Department has charged 113 noncitizens across 20 states in the last seven weeks.

One defendant is a 72-year-old Belizean national, Alexander Muñoz. Prosecutors allege he claimed to be a citizen, registered in September 2019 and voted in 2020, twice in 2022 and in 2024. They also allege he lied on a naturalization application, and say he has prior narcotics possession and grand theft convictions. CBS reports dozens of agents went to his home and he was taken out in his pajamas. These are allegations, not findings.

Prosecutors also allege that Amandeep Kaur, a 30-year-old Indian national in Rancho Palos Verdes, registered in December 2022 and voted in November 2024. Haitian national Cliff Sanon, 39, is accused of voting in November 2022.

The administration's case

A DHS spokesperson said HSI "is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found" so that "American citizens and only American citizens are electing American leaders." The spokesperson added that people who are here legally and not breaking other laws "have nothing to fear."

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon made a similar argument on "60 Minutes" on Oct. 18. Host Lesley Stahl said very few noncitizens vote and asked what the purpose was. Dhillon answered that "the distrust is there," that such crimes are now being prosecuted "in volume," and that even the Biden administration prosecuted 13 people for noncitizen voting. She said thousands of cases are under review and investigations have run for more than a year. Dhillon has described the department's approach as "broken windows" enforcement: pursue every provable case, not just fraud large enough to swing an election.

There is also a real-world trigger. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, disclosed that noncitizens ended up on her state's voter rolls through the motor-vehicle system. Nineteen House Republicans put the figures at about 6,600 registered and roughly 400 who voted, and asked her to explain.

The numbers critics point to

DHS has alleged that as many as 250,000 noncitizens could be illegally registered. Election experts dispute that figure. The Justice Department says 156 people have been charged with voting-fraud offenses since the start of the Trump administration, against 227 million registered voters.

Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, said the federal government is "inserting itself into the state process for verifying their voter roles in an unprecedented way," in a manner "maximally designed to scare lawful voters from participating." Her group is co-counsel on a federal suit filed Sept. 18 in San Francisco by California nurses unions, Voto Latino, Santa Clara County and the city of San Francisco. The suit claims the visits intimidate voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act and seeks to stop them.

Eric Balliet, a former HSI agent with 23 years at the agency under multiple administrations, said he "never engaged in or was aware of any incident of initiative that sent Special Agents to private residences to verify the eligibility of voters."

What remains open

Both sides are working from facts that can be checked. Prosecutors have filed named cases with specific elections and dates, and defendants will have to answer them in court. The 250,000 figure remains disputed by election experts, and the federal lawsuit is still pending.

The open question is whether a federal judge acts on the San Francisco suit before the midterms, and whether HSI keeps knocking on doors until the polls open.