With the midterm elections just months away, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun requesting private information from voters in key states. According to an investigation by EL PAÍS, which had access to emails obtained by the organization Democracy Forward, agents from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit directly contacted electoral officials in Texas and North Carolina to request records of at least nine voters.

In Texas, the request reached Webb County, bordering Mexico, where a special agent requested registration documents and voting records for seven people. The emails do not detail why those specific voters were selected.

“There is nothing,” José Luis Castillo, the county's electoral administrator, responded to Axios, which first reported the case. “In my opinion, they could use their resources for something else more useful.”

Voters under scrutiny in North Carolina

On the other side of the country, an ICE legal advisor requested data on two Forsyth County voters, one registered in 2016 and another who registered three decades ago. Both were later removed from the register, although local authorities could not explain the reasons or provide such old documents.

Forsyth County voted overwhelmingly Democratic in both 2020 and 2024, which has raised suspicions about the selection criteria.

A narrative without support

President Donald Trump has insisted since 2016 on the existence of massive electoral fraud, despite never presenting evidence. Even members of his own party have questioned him.

“Trump's insistence that voter fraud is the reason Republicans lose elections has been very damaging to the party,” criticized Trey Grayson, former Kentucky Secretary of State, in 2024.

The fact-checking site Politifact has documented that voter fraud in the United States is “statistically rare and insufficient to change the outcome in federal elections.”

For its part, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to EL PAÍS that HSI “actively works to detect and investigate electoral fraud,” although it did not offer details about the specific cases. The organization Democracy Forward described the actions as “disturbing” and recalled that ICE “has no role in the investigation of elections.”