The Department of Homeland Security issued a letter on July 18th claiming that California, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey collectively had 250,000 potential non-citizens on their voter lists.
Posted by Badlands Media, Checked
- Sources
- 5 support2 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 85%
Badlands MediaSep 16, 2026
DHS did claim that California, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey collectively had over 250,000 potential non-citizens on their voter rolls, in a July 2026 release and letters, and the four state figures sum to about 256,000. The sources date the letters to July 16–17 rather than July 18, a peripheral detail that does not change the core assertion.
What was said
… 128 million voter records, and claim that 24,000 might have been non-citizens. I will do the math for you so you don't have to: that's 01875%. That is infinitesimal, and documents how well the states have done. When the Department of Homeland Security, the day after, uhm, uh, the president's speech on July 17th, put out a letter claiming that California, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey collectively had 250,000 potential non-citizens on the voter list, every one of those states responded to DHS and said, "Show us your work. Tell us how you got to these numbers, and show us the lists, because we can't do anything with, with just a number of alleged non-citizens. We need to look at the actual record." …
Badlands Media · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. The DHS press release, dated July 17, 2026, says DHS identified 'over 250,000 potential non-citizens' across four states and lists per-state figures of 190,832 (CA), 35,152 (NJ), 15,903 (NV), and 14,576 (PA).[3]
Supports. A federal court order describes DHS letters to these states alleging non-citizens on their rolls, and Snopes and Reason describe the July DHS claims in the same terms, confirming the claim was made.[1][4][5]
Supports. A Lewistown Sentinel article dated July 18, 2026 reports that DHS identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in the four named states.[6]
Context. The DHS figures were later revised sharply downward: NPR reports DHS acknowledged the numbers were inflated, and California's estimate fell to about 20,000 by October. The original claim was still made as stated.[2][5][7]
Context. Sources place the California letter on July 16 and the release on July 17, so the July 18 date in the claim does not match the letter dates. The claim's central assertion, that DHS claimed about 250,000 across the four states, is not affected.[3][4]
Sources
7 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 2 primary, 2 tier 2, 1 not rated
- 1Noncitizens don't vote in large numbers in US elections. Here's proofsnopes.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 2Justice Department threatens California with legal action over claim of noncitizens on voter rollsapnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 3DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin Sends Letters to Secretaries of State Warning About Non-Citizens on Voter Rollsdhs.gov · primary source · cited for: supports, context
- 4united states district court - Election Law Blogoag.ca.gov · primary source · cited for: supports, context
- 5Trump's claims about noncitizen voting are 'not credible,' a federal judge says in a scathing decisionreason.com · tier 2 · cited for: supports, context
- 6Markwayne Mullin reveals 250k non-citizens registered to vote -lewistownsentinel.com · not rated · cited for: supports
- 7DHS concedes noncitizen voter numbers it touted are inflatednpr.org · tier 2 · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
Related claims
- The Department of Homeland Security identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote in federal elections across eight states.False
- In July 2026, Department of Homeland Security officials informed Nevada officials that they had identified nearly 16,000 non-citizens on the state's voter rolls.True
- The Department of Homeland Security sent a letter stating that 20,000 people are illegally registered to vote.Mixed
- Preliminary reviews of voter records by the Department of Homeland Security show 190,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California.False
- Nevada officials identified 185 possible non-citizens on their voter list during meetings with the Department of Homeland Security.Can’t tell