Power Grab/Point the law at critics
ICE records show Homeland Security Investigations reviewed hundreds of voter-registration nonprofits and planned undercover operations to “initiate prosecutions”
— ICE reviews hundreds of voter-registration nonprofits and plans undercover operations.
Registering voters is lawful, and nonprofits do most of it in poor and immigrant neighborhoods. The records were released October 7, 2026.
What happened
ICE records released October 7, 2026 show that over the preceding year Homeland Security Investigations reviewed hundreds of nonprofits that register voters. That included at least 82 in Pennsylvania, among them the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and 41 in New Jersey, plus groups in Ohio, the District of Columbia and Minnesota.
In New Jersey, the records state that “no derogatory information was found.” Agents used nonprofit search engines to list the organizations, then searched other databases for “derogatory information” about them.
A planning document says future undercover operations would “target identified organizations” to “initiate prosecutions and dismantle illicit facilitation networks.” In Ohio, HSI Cleveland and the FBI identified seven firms linked to Black Fork Strategies, whose founder also started the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, raided by the FBI in June 2026.
Who benefited
The administration gained a national list of the organizations that turn out voters in Democratic-leaning communities, assembled by an agency with arrest powers. The same agency plans undercover operations aimed at them.
Who wanted something
DHS leadership is running the “noncitizen voting” effort, and voter-registration groups became its next target. The premise of the effort is that noncitizens are being registered, so the groups that register voters were treated as suspects.
Who lost out
The groups were investigated for doing lawful work and cleared in writing without ever being told. The people they register are now subjects of an immigration agency’s interest. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s June raid appears as one part of a national program.
Why it matters
The June raid in Ohio was part of a program run by an immigration agency against the groups that register voters, with undercover prosecutions as the stated goal. “No derogatory information was found” is the government’s own verdict on groups it kept investigating.
Sources ICE FOIA production to Democracy Forward (hosted by Democracy Docket) (primary)Democracy Docket
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