Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has issued an Election Day decree on social media threatening anyone who attempts to “vote illegally.”
“If you vote illegally in this country, and you are NOT eligible to vote, @DHSgov will find you, hunt you down, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Only American citizens should be deciding American elections,” he wrote on X.
The threat came just after 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, as Americans headed to the polls.
The Trump administration has been fixated on the idea that non-citizens have been voting in elections en masse, jeopardizing the integrity of results.
The debunked theory that President Donald Trump didn’t really lose the 2020 election has been a key theme of the president’s second term, and was the instigation for the January 6 riots.
On July 16, Trump gave a primetime address to the nation about his conspiracy theories as he tried to convince senators to pass his voter I.D. law, saying it would help secure the electoral process.
Trump claimed that “approximately 278,000 noncitizens” were registered to vote in federal elections, but offered no proof.
His figures came from a Department of Homeland Security report, which alleged more than 250,000 illegal voters had registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
But despite these claims, DHS has only prosecuted a tiny fraction of allegedly illegal voters.
Only about 236 people have been charged with voting-fraud-related offenses across the country since the start of the second Trump administration.
There is no evidence that non-citizens voting illegally have ever had any influence over U.S. elections. In the 2024 election, around 155 million Americans cast ballots, about three million fewer than in 2020.
Roughly six million fewer voters turned out for Kamala Harris than they did for Joe Biden, and despite getting around three million more votes in 2024 than he did in 2020, Trump still didn’t win the popular vote.
While typically less than 50 percent of eligible American voters turn out to vote in mid term elections, nearly 60 million voters have cast early ballots, up by around 15 milllion from 2022.
“DHS is upholding the rule of law and protecting the integrity of American elections by removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens. ONLY Americans should elect American leaders,” a DHS spokesperson said.
They pointed to DHS press releases saying they had already arrested “dozens” of illegal alien voters.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
