USCIS leadership has instructed employees to prioritize vetting white South African refugees and searching voter rolls for non-citizen voting.
Posted by Bulwark Takes, Checked
- Sources
- 4 support2 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 62%
Bulwark TakesAug 29, 2026
Multiple outlets report, citing internal USCIS correspondence and anonymous former officials, that FDNS fraud-detection officers were reassigned full-time to South African refugee screening and unlawful-voter screening, which supports the claim as of late August 2026. The evidence rests on reporting of internal messages rather than on the documents themselves, and USCIS offered only a non-denial, so confidence is moderate.
This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.
What was said
… 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. We like the midterms are coming. We got it, we got a, like, you know, a big political, uh, you know, high stakes conspiracy theory to, uh, to pursue. Uh And so, I mean, it's just shameless, right? …
Bulwark Takes · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. The Guardian, as reported by several outlets, quoted an internal message stating that all FDNS officers had been reassigned full-time to South African refugee screening and unlawful voter screening.[3][4][5]
Supports. The Washington Post, citing three former officials, reported that USCIS fraud detection officers were tasked with screening voter data for noncitizens who registered to vote, and that their immigration screening work had effectively halted.[6]
Context. USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler did not deny the reassignment and said only that the directorate works on different vetting portfolios, which is a non-denial rather than a contradiction.[3][5]
Context. Reuters and AP reporting confirms the broader administration policy of prioritizing Afrikaner refugees and a 2025 review of Biden-era refugees, which makes the South African refugee priority consistent with official policy.[1][2]
Context. The reports are dated August 24 to 26, 2026, before the 2026-08-29 date the claim was made, so they cover the state of affairs at the claim's date.[3][4][5][6]
Sources
6 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 4 not rated
- 1Trump administration orders review of Biden-era refugees, memo showsreuters.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 2South African government criticizes Trump's refugee policy ...apnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 3Trump's voter suppression obsession infects a key office at DHSms.now · not rated · cited for: supports, context
- 4Trump Reassigns All USCIS Anti-Fraud Officers to Screen South African Refugees and Votersbriefly.co.za · not rated · cited for: supports, context
- 5US immigration officers reassigned to screen South African refugees and find ‘unlawful' votersaol.com · not rated · cited for: supports, context
- 6Immigration officers are being diverted to Trump's voter-fraud effortadn.com · not rated · cited for: supports, context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
Related claims
- USCIS leadership has instructed employees in the fraud detection and national security directorate to stop detecting criminal fraud and national security threats.Can’t tell
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