Federal Immigration Agents Probe Suspected Voter Fraud in Missouri as Midterms Near

Federal immigration agents are investigating suspected voter fraud in Missouri, part of a nationwide Trump administration push in the weeks before the midterm elections.

On Sept. 3, the Kansas City office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) published two social media posts saying its agents were looking into suspected unlawful voting in St. Louis. The agency cited its commitment to "protecting election integrity and rooting out voter fraud wherever it occurs." One photo showed a federal agent walking in front of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners office, and another showed two HSI agents outside a residential building. The posts did not say when the images were taken or how many people are under investigation.

HSI is the investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and usually handles criminal matters such as human trafficking, weapons trade and financial fraud. CNN has reported that the Department of Homeland Security is using the agency in President Trump's search for widespread election fraud.

CBS News reported on Wednesday that armed federal agents have been knocking on doors in several states, asking residents about their immigration status and whether they have registered to vote or cast ballots in earlier elections. Missouri is among nine states named in a federal lawsuit filed Oct. 15 as targets of the large-scale HSI investigation. The League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the League of United Latin American Citizens allege that DHS unlawfully collected voting records from at least 47 states and merged them with other personal data to try to identify noncitizens accused of voting.

Voting rights advocates say publicizing unfounded investigations amounts to intimidation, even of eligible Missouri residents. Denise Lieberman, director of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition, called HSI's actions "unprecedented" in her two decades on the job. "This is about fear tactics. This is about intimidation. This is about trying to keep ethnic minority communities from exercising their right to vote," she said.

A federal judge in California appeared to share those concerns. Late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a preliminary injunction limiting certain investigations under DHS's "Unauthorized Voter Initiative" through Election Day. She wrote that the use of armed agents, unreliable voter data and a social media publicity campaign, specifically noting the two St. Louis posts, likely violated the Voting Rights Act's protections against voter intimidation. A separate NAACP suit against DHS alleges that threats to send armed immigration agents to polling places in November amount to intimidation of communities of color.

Federal prosecutors in Kansas City have charged at least two green card holders this month with illegal voting, a Cass County man and a McDonald County woman. The government says both were legally authorized to live in the U.S. but ineligible to vote in federal elections. Those cases are pending. Robert Patrick, a spokesperson for the Eastern District of Missouri, told St. Louis Public Radio that the office has not charged any election fraud cases, adding that Justice Department policy is to neither confirm nor deny investigations.

There is no conclusive evidence of widespread voter fraud in Missouri. The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, has tracked people convicted of illegal voting since 2000; of its 30 Missouri cases, St. Louis Public Radio found two involving people without legal status. As of 2022, more than 4.2 million Missourians were registered to vote.

The administration has faced scrutiny over its fraud claims. In July, DHS admitted it had inflated the number of people without legal status who could be registered to vote. According to Justice Department figures cited by CBS News, 156 people have been charged with voting-related offenses nationwide since the start of Trump's second term, while federal data show more than 211 million people were registered to vote in the 2024 presidential election. ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.