Kelly and other Democrats say DHS head is undermining public trust ahead of midterms

Arizona’s Sen. Mark Kelly is among more than two dozen Democrats signed onto a letter accusing the Trump administration of "intentionally undermining Americans’ trust in the 2026 midterms and appear to purposefully disenfranchise eligible voters.”

The letter says Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has been unwilling to publicly affirm ICE and Border Patrol won't be sent to voting polls — despite that being against federal law. They also say the secretary has failed to provide evidence for a July claim that the agency had identified 250,000 non-citizens who were registered to vote in four states.

The letter comes after a DHS whistleblower alleged a recent, multi-state voter fraud initiative verified people’s immigration statuses by directing Citizenship and Immigration Services employees to use sensitive, personally identifiable information, and in some cases, impersonate voters to access voter registration websites — potentially violating state laws.

The senators are calling on Mullin to end that initiative and provide evidence for voter fraud claims, among other things.

"The 2026 midterm elections are already underway," the letter read. "Your unsubstantiated allegations of noncitizen voter fraud, public recitation of unreliable data, and unwarranted conditioning of continued grant funding for state election security measures on compliance with politically motivated requests for voter data appear to be calculated efforts to undermine confidence in our elections and risks wrongly disenfranchising voters."

In response to questions about the report and voter fraud claims, a DHS spokesperson told KJZZ the notion that it’s attempting to exert more federal control over elections is “totally false.”

“ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations. ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action,” the spokesperson said in an email.

The agency did not respond to questions about what evidence it has showing that 250,000 non-U.S. citizens were registered to vote, or why it had not been made public.