USCIS leadership has instructed employees in the fraud detection and national security directorate to stop detecting criminal fraud and national security threats.
Posted by Bulwark Takes, Checked
- Sources
- 1 support5 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 35%
Bulwark TakesAug 29, 2026
The only source addressing the alleged instruction is a Senate press release (published 2026-09-15, after the 2026-08-29 post) describing an unverified whistleblower disclosure that USCIS officers were told to stop national security and anti-fraud work.
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What was said
… And one more thing, Catherine, this is just, a speaking of, like, you know, all the crazy things just happening in the past week. There is a credible story just in the past couple days that my old agency, USCIS, has taken the political appointees leadership there has said to all the hundreds and hundreds of employees who work on fraud detection and national security that's literally the directorate they work in and said, Stop detecting the criminal fraud and national security. We want you to only be working on two things: number one, finish the vetting for white South African refugees, and number two, look over all these voter rolls and find every example you can of non-citizens voting, because that's that's what we want. …
Bulwark Takes · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. Senator Padilla's office describes a whistleblower disclosure alleging USCIS officers were directed to stop their regular national security and anti-fraud work, but it reports an allegation rather than verified fact, and it was published after the claim date.[3]
Context. A USCIS policy alert of August 25, 2026 gave FDNS a central role in naturalization neighborhood investigations, which cuts against the idea that FDNS had been told to stop its detection work.[1]
Context. A GAO report published 2026-10-20 describes FDNS as leading USCIS's fraud-combating efforts, but it does not address any instruction to stop detection work.[4]
Context. Other sources cover USCIS fraud and national security practices in general terms and do not address any leadership instruction to halt detection work.[2][5][6]
Sources
6 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 4 primary
- 12026 US Immigration Developments Tracker | Practical Lawreuters.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 2Under Trump, citizenship and visa agency focuses on fraud - AP Newsapnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 3WATCH: Padilla Leads Congressional Response to Bombshell DHS ...padilla.senate.gov · primary source · cited for: supports
- 4[PDF] US CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES Implementing ...gao.gov · primary source · cited for: context
- 5USCIS FYs 2023-2026 Learning Agendauscis.gov · primary source · cited for: context
- 6Department of Homeland Securitygovinfo.gov · primary source · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
Related claims
- USCIS leadership has instructed employees to prioritize vetting white South African refugees and searching voter rolls for non-citizen voting.True
- A whistleblower alleged that inspectors under the direction of top Homeland Security leadership broke state laws to find noncitizens on voter rolls.True
- The Department of Homeland Security is hunting for non-citizens on voter rolls to build a fraud narrative.True