17OCT

Watchdog sues DHS over Mullin's 250,000

2 min read

17:30UTC

American Oversight sued DHS on 30 September for the records behind Secretary Markwayne Mullin's claim of 250,000 non-citizens on voter rolls, a day after CREW filed a similar suit.

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Key takeaway

Two watchdogs are suing DHS for the evidence behind its claim of 250,000 non-citizen registrants.

American Oversight, a watchdog group, sued the Homeland Security department (DHS) in federal court in Washington on 30 September under the Freedom of Information Act⁠¹. It wants the records behind Secretary Markwayne Mullin's 17 July claim that DHS had found 250,000 non-citizens on voter rolls, 190,832 of them in California. American Oversight says it filed two requests on 21 August and that DHS acknowledged them on 31 August.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), another watchdog group, filed a similar suit a day earlier against DHS and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the immigration agency inside the department, with a motion for a preliminary injunction⁠². American Oversight says Mullin's figure rested on "an analysis of commercial databases" without driver licence or Social Security numbers.

Both suits seek the evidence for DHS's own count in the week the Supreme Court revived the department's bulk citizenship checks for election officials. They follow the Democratic National Committee's own freedom-of-information suit against DHS, which produced a 2025 internal email that NPR published in September.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

On 17 July Markwayne Mullin, the Secretary of Homeland Security, said his department had found 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote. Most were in California, with smaller numbers in New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Only US citizens may vote in federal elections. A claim that large would matter, so two watchdog groups asked to see the evidence under the Freedom of Information Act, which lets the public request government records. The department has not handed anything over, so both groups have now gone to court. A judge can order the department to release the records by a set date.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Non-citizen voting claims resist testing because no single US database holds every citizen. The federal government has never kept a national citizenship register, so any count relies on matching voter lists against partial records.

The Freedom of Information Act is the main tool outsiders have to see the method. American Oversight filed its requests on 21 August; DHS acknowledged them on 31 August and, it says, has produced nothing. A suit lets a judge set a deadline the agency does not set itself.

What could happen next?

Consequence
CREW's preliminary-injunction motion could force a court-set release timetable for the records before 3 November.
Meaning
The only state check reported so far, in Nevada, found no non-citizens on DHS's confirmed list, according to American Oversight and Democracy Docket.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In 2017 Maine's Secretary of State, Matthew Dunlap, sued the presidential election integrity commission he sat on for its working papers. Dunlap said the documents released in August 2018 contained no evidence for the claims of mass illegal voting that had prompted the commission.

Counter-parallel: In 2012 Florida drew up a list of about 180,000 suspected non-citizen voters from driver licence data. It shrank to about 2,600 names after checks, and fewer than 100 were removed, though a small number of genuine non-citizen registrations did exist.

Consensus view: American Oversight says the 250,000 figure came from 'an analysis of commercial databases' without driver licence or Social Security numbers. Matching on names and birth dates alone produces false matches, which is why both suits ask for the method as well as the totals.

Counter-view: the Supreme Court's 25 September per curiam said blocking DHS's expanded SAVE 'inhibits the Federal Government's efforts to assist state and local agencies' in running the midterms. On that view, the department's data work has a lawful purpose whatever the 17 July number shows. The suits test the claim, not the department's wider powers.

Key tension: Whether DHS's 'confirmed' lists hold up when states check them. American Oversight and Democracy Docket relay that Nevada found every name DHS sent it to be a citizen; if that holds, the gap between 15,903 claimed and none confirmed is the story.

First Reported In

Update #19 · Bulk voter citizenship checks are back

American Oversight· 1 Oct 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

This Event

Watchdog sues DHS over Mullin's 250,000

Two suits now seek the evidence behind DHS's own headline count of non-citizen registrants in the week the department regained bulk citizenship checks.

Led to

North Carolina's SAVE check flags 1,392

North Carolina's count of 1,392 sits far below DHS's national claim of 250,000.

Occurred 13 Oct 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

James Talarico's campaign

Talarico's campaign reported raising $56.34m in the quarter to Ken Paxton's $10.17m, and says he has been off the trail since 30 September with flu. Texas PAC, whose only donor is SLF, has spent $131.5m in the race, more than twice what the campaign spent.

Senate Majority PAC, spokesperson Lauren French

French said on 8 October that the Democratic super PAC was watching Kansas closely, but its booked airtime covers nine states and Kansas is not one. Whether SMP spends there decides if Adam Hamilton's 13-to-1 fundraising edge meets outside Republican money alone.

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State

Raffensperger's office reported 188,667 in-person votes on the first day of early voting, a midterm record. He expects turnout to challenge 2022's near 4m.

Sam Hayes, North Carolina State Board of Elections

Hayes's board reported 1,392 SAVE flags, about 0.02% of the roll, and says no voter will be removed automatically. The board is asking flagged voters to cancel or prove citizenship by letter, while eligible voters keep the right to vote on 3 November.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune

Thune, the Senate's Republican leader, said the government-paid ads should not be funded by taxpayers. His objection puts the party's own Senate leadership against the administration on the DHS spending.

The White House and Donald Trump

The White House calls the five DHS ads public-service announcements with no call to action; Trump called them "rather standard", then said his political fundraising would pay. A White House official said there are no immediate plans to repay.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.