The Trump administration has intensified its campaign against election officials in key battleground states, with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claiming that hundreds of thousands of non-citizens are illegally registered to vote—figures that DHS itself acknowledges are unverified.
During a July 17 press conference, Mullin repeated assertions from a White House document alleging approximately 250,000 non-citizens registered across California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
However, DHS letters to these states describe the figures as preliminary matches requiring further verification. Pennsylvania’s letter, for example, states there “may be as many as 14,576 non-citizens” but only 8,594 matched DHS records, requesting collaborative identity verification.
Critics note that the SAVE system DHS relies on has a history of inflated matches, often flagging naturalized citizens or clerical errors. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar called the numbers “wildly speculative,” while Pennsylvania’s Republican Secretary of State Al Schmidt emphasized that non-citizen voting is “extremely rare.”
Election officials in Georgia and Missouri similarly reported that flagged individuals are under review, with confirmed cases far fewer than DHS tallies suggest. The administration has provided no evidence that any non-citizens actually cast ballots.
