DHS Email Fuels Election Prosecution Fears

An internal Department of Homeland Security email that pairs a 78-page list of multilingual voting jurisdictions with a Department of Justice criminal-prosecution checklist is raising new questions about the Trump administration’s election plans, just weeks before the November midterms.

The email, sent last December but newly obtained by NPR, attached the list of counties and states that offer election materials and ballots in non-English languages alongside the DOJ checklist outlining requirements for prosecuting voter-related charges. The disclosure is the latest in a series of federal actions that critics say are designed to intimidate voters and election officials in immigrant-heavy communities.

Nothing in the heavily redacted document alludes to enforcement activity at the listed locations. In a court filing defending its redactions, DHS described the email as a “subordinate sharing initial thoughts and opinions with leadership.” But the juxtaposition has alarmed Democrats and voting officials, who fear such jurisdictions are being considered as targets.

What the Document Shows

DHS released the email as part of a tranche of materials after the Democratic National Committee sued over a public records request. The message was dated Dec. 19 and sent from a DHS border policy acting director, whose name is redacted, to Rob Law, the undersecretary for strategy, policy and plans. Heather Honey, who is leading the administration’s push to root out noncitizen voting, was copied, along with other officials from the office.

It is unclear who compiled the list. The document encompassed jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act’s language-minority requirements — areas where more than 5% of voting-age citizens primarily speak a language other than English — plus some state and local policies. Under federal law, election officials in those areas are required to provide materials in those languages, and the information is public.

When asked about the document, DHS told NPR that anyone who votes illegally should not be able to “use a purported lack of knowledge” of English to avoid prosecution.

Dan Freeman, the DNC’s litigation director and a former DOJ Voting Section attorney, said the combination of the two documents, and the fact that DHS deemed the email responsive to the DNC’s records request, was telling.

“The very simple connection that I logically drew is that they’re targeting [these jurisdictions],” Freeman said. “But right now, the logical inference that I think anyone would make is that they are thinking about prosecution of federal election crimes in jurisdictions where elections are conducted in a language other than English.”

A Pattern of Federal Pressure

The email lands amid a broader federal push to investigate noncitizen voting. In recent weeks, DHS has surged resources into what it calls the Unlawful Voter Initiative, and federal prosecutors have brought charges against individuals in several states. On Sept. 14, the Justice Department announced charges against six people in California, Kansas and Louisiana for illegal voting, fraudulent registration and identity fraud. Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the cases as a matter of election integrity; Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said noncitizens “can no longer poison our election processes.”

That initiative has drawn scrutiny of its own. A federal whistleblower, represented by the nonprofit Democracy Defenders Fund, alleged in a report made public by Sens. Alex Padilla and Chuck Schumer that agents scouring voter rolls may have committed “thousands of violations of state law” by plugging personally identifiable information into public-facing state websites. The report also claimed officers were given quotas of at least five subjects per hour and 40 per day, leaving only about 12 minutes to determine citizenship. DHS rejected the characterization, saying its “investigative efforts are conducted diligently and professionally” and that “there is no quota on criminality.”

Separately, civil rights groups and unions have filed lawsuits seeking to block federal officers from polling places, citing the Voting Rights Act’s anti-intimidation provision. Administration officials have repeatedly left open the possibility of such deployments: Mullin said ICE agents could serve warrants at polling places, and President Trump said in May he would do “anything necessary” to ensure “honest” elections.

The Evidence Behind the Claims

Independent research has found little to support the premise of widespread noncitizen voting. A 2025 review by the Center for Election Innovation & Research found that noncitizen voting occurs in “minuscule numbers,” and that the vast majority of allegations stem from “misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, or outright fabrications” about voter data, as NPR reported. DHS itself has quietly walked back its claims of 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls; in Nevada, the agency scaled its estimate from 16,000 down to 185.

As Votebeat has detailed, Mullin became the public face of the administration’s election overhaul after the president’s July primetime address attacking the voting system, and the broad campaign “has led to the arrest of at least six noncitizens accused of voting.”

Federal law is clear that sending armed federal agents to election sites is illegal. As the Brennan Center for Justice notes, three federal statutes — including an 1865 law barring federal officials from stationing armed men where elections are held — criminalize federal interference, and the Voting Rights Act allows those intimidated to seek injunctions.

A Chilling Effect

Regardless of whether enforcement materializes, the messaging appears to be having an effect. Roughly 40% of voters now think it is likely ICE agents will be present at voting locations in their area, according to a September University of California San Diego survey. The poll also found that voters of color were significantly more likely than white voters to say they feared voting could put them at risk of being questioned by immigration authorities, despite being U.S. citizens.

Voting officials say the anxiety is palpable. Paul López, the top voting official in Denver and a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to prevent federal agents from the polls, said the aim is to discourage participation.

“What they’re trying to do is put it out there to discourage people from voting, to create an atmosphere of fear, and it creates a chilling effect on the democratic process,” López said. Denver is among the jurisdictions named in the DHS document as offering multilingual election materials; close to a third of its population is Hispanic or Latino.

Still, López struck a defiant note, arguing federal law is on his side.

“It is illegal for folks to be targeted on the basis of their language,” he said. “My message to voters is, ‘Don’t let these thugs scare you.’ … You’re not going to be bullied, and we’re not going to be intimidated. Democracy will happen.”

What to Watch

The DNC is continuing to litigate for additional records, and the lawsuits over federal presence at the polls remain pending. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s mail-voting restrictions for this year’s midterms, and courts have repeatedly pushed back on other federal election demands.

With early voting approaching, the central question is whether the disclosure changes anything on the ground — or merely deepens the climate of uncertainty that voting-rights advocates say is the point. Either way, the email offers the clearest window yet into how federal officials have weighed the machinery of prosecution against communities that conduct elections in more than one language.