ICE Told a Court It Had No Records. It Then Produced 11,103 Pages of the Wrong Ones.

The document has a title, a date and a filename with an editing chain in it: "Checklist for Law Enforcement Voter Integrity 9.15.25 - FINAL DRAFT -- BSI suggestions.docx". It is twelve pages. It was attached to a DHS email that DHS itself processed and judged relevant enough to send.

Nobody has seen it.

The most direct way into that is the FOIA case the Democratic National Committee filed in October 2025, which is a document-by-document account of an agency changing its answer and then running out of road before the election.

May: no records#

The joint meet and confer report of 22 May 2026 is unambiguous. In the defendants' own statement, at paragraph three: "ICE has completed its searches and did not locate any responsive records; a no-records response will be provided to Plaintiff shortly." A no-records letter followed on 10 June.

The request, filed 17 October 2025, was about records concerning the potential deployment of federal agents and troops to polling places, drop boxes and election offices. It carried an exclusion, in the request's own words: "The above request excludes agency records consisting solely of news articles or press clippings, so long as the records include no accompanying discussion by agency officials."

July: 11,103#

The 10 July joint status report contains the reversal, and the language is worth reading in the order the court recorded it. The DNC's section says it flagged repeated ICE deployments and Secretary of Homeland Security Mullin's testimony, and that "only in response to that request did ICE search the Office of the Chief Information Officer, the Executive Secretariat, Enforcement and Removal Operations Headquarters, and the Office of Public Affairs, which uncovered 11,103 potentially responsive pages."

Two corrections matter here, because they are the kind a hostile reader finds in an hour. The 11,103 is pages, not records. And the "more than 22 months to process at current rates" line is the DNC's arithmetic, in the DNC's section of the report. ICE's own section says only that the material "will be processed at the rate of 500 pages per month, with a first production expected by August 7, 2026," and that "the supplemental search by ERO located no potentially responsive records." ICE never said 22 months.

The 13 July minute order put it in one line: "ICE had previously represented that no responsive records were found, JSR at 8, but has now reversed its position only after plaintiff pointed out that 'ICE agents have conducted enforcement actions outside active polling places in Texas and California,' that 'ICE agents also entered an active polling place in New York to confront a poll worker over a months-old Instagram post addressing the killing of Renee Good,' and that Secretary of Homeland Security Mullin has testified on 'ICE deployments in polling places.' Now, ICE reports 11,103 potentially responsive pages."

The court ordered processing at a rate of at least 1,000 pages per month, including the month of July, and directed the agencies to "provide a full explanation as to the lack of compliance."

August: the wrong 576 pages#

The first production, delivered on 7 August, was 576 pages of unannotated press clippings compiled in the DHS Daily Briefing.

The DNC's section of the 7 August report put it plainly: "Defendants have produced vanishingly few documents beyond public materials of marginal relevance and press clipping expressly excluded from the DNC's FOIA requests." The same report notes that "U.S. Customs and Border Protection ('CBP') still has not produced documents to the DNC, having deemed all documents reviewed not to be relevant."

So the quota the court set was being spent on exactly the material the request had excluded.

By the 21 August report, the DNC was drawing the obvious inference: ICE "suggests below that it will review less than 20% of its remaining potentially responsive records prior to Election Day." Again, the inference is the DNC's. ICE's own paragraph says that "approximately 10,698 pages of potentially responsive records remain to be processed" and that at 1,000 pages a month "initial processing will be complete by approximately June 2027."

September: the document#

The 18 September joint status report is where the checklist enters the record.

It was "an attachment to an email produced by DHS on July 30-and therefore determined by DHS to be relevant-had been neither produced nor logged on a Vaughn index." The DNC had initially assumed it was produced under an exemption; when DHS produced a Vaughn index it turned out the covered pages were a different document. The DNC then presumed it was in DOJ consultation, but DHS "has not been able to confirm that a consultation request regarding that record was sent to DOJ in the course of the July 2026 processing."

The follow-up did happen, on 16 September, and the court pushed on 21 September, directing DOJ to complete review of the twelve pages by 24 September and DHS to produce any non-exempt information by 25 September with clear explanations for any withholding. On 25 September DHS conveyed its determination to withhold the record in full under exemptions 5 and 7(E), with an extended description of the basis.

One correction to the way this story is usually told. The sentence claiming that "ICE neither logged this document on its Vaughn index, nor sent it to DOJ for consultation - it simply failed to produce it or assert a proper exemption" is from paragraph 55 of the DSCC complaint, not from the status report. And the complaint's attribution to ICE is wrong: the record shows DHS Headquarters held and withheld this document, and DHS counsel apologised to the court and to the plaintiff for the omissions. DHS does not appear in the DSCC complaint at all as a defendant in its own right on this point, and CBP is not in that case either.

As of the 16 October status report, the checklist is still not produced, and the DNC has said it does not intend to challenge the exemptions asserted in the Vaughn indices. It is moving to a fee phase.

What the filename might mean, and what it does not#

Nobody has seen the document. Its significance is the failure to produce it and the exemption claim now being made to keep it that way, not its contents, and it would be reckless to imply otherwise.

One piece of context is available. Democracy Docket reported that BSI is the Office of Border Security and Immigration, DHS's policy arm, and that the filename reads as BSI having been asked to suggest edits. Its observation: "It's unclear why BSI, which focuses strictly on immigration and border security matters, was asked to provide input for the voting-related law enforcement checklist ... it's uncertain where the document originated and what specific law enforcement agency it was intended for."

A DNC footnote argues that a document marked FINAL DRAFT cannot be withheld under deliberative process privilege, citing the Supreme Court's 2021 decision in the Sierra Club case. That argument has now been made and not yet tested, before the midterms.

The better document#

The more striking production surfaced on 7 October, in a different FOIA case before the same court, and it is 166 pages of ICE's own preparation.

The Democracy Forward Foundation published the set, and two of the documents are talking points numbered HOT TOPIC 14 and 15, prepared for an unnamed official ahead of a meeting with members of Congress.

HOT TOPIC 15 reads: "ICE conducts civil enforcement and criminal law enforcement. There's no reason for us to deploy to a polling facility." And: "ICE does not possess independent authority to administer or oversee elections."

HOT TOPIC 14 reads: "There is no reason for ICE officers and agents to be deployed to polling places, unless a threat arises." And: "Voter fraud does happen. In fact, so far this year HSI has made 36 criminal arrests and 56 administrative arrests related to voter fraud."

Both contain a redacted proposed answer to a specific question: "Will ICE arrest people at polling places? If you are ordered to send ICE personnel to polling places, will you comply with the order?" The redaction is under the exemption for pre-decisional material, and Democracy Docket's objection is plain: it is unclear how that could apply to a pre-prepared answer to an expected question from a lawmaker.

The production also includes an undated letter from then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, and weekly reports from ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit on election integrity. Those report more than 2,000 investigative leads across 49 HSI field offices in 2025 and 68 cases presented for prosecution, alongside 48.4 million records from what the reports call independent sources, 50.6 million voter-roll records from DOJ, and consideration of using undercover agents inside voter-registration nonprofits in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The DNC, which only learned of the production on 7 October, asked the court why these documents were not produced in its own case, and put the reason plainly: such information is necessary before the DNC can agree that ICE conducted a reasonable search.

The policy on the record, and the gap#

The assurances are real and they are on the record.

On 25 February 2026, DHS assistant secretary for election integrity Heather Honey told state election officials that any suggestion ICE would be present was disinformation and that "there will be no ICE presence at polling locations for this election." On 18 March, Secretary Mullin told the Senate Homeland Security confirmation hearing that he believed he had authority to put uniformed officers at polling locations "if there was a specific threat for them to be there," and declined to guarantee hypothetically of what threat would suffice. On 1 September, at a New York City press conference, Mullin said the only reasons for being at polling places would be a threat to the location or the serving of a warrant. On 14 September, Tom Homan told Fox that "there is no reason for us to deploy" and called the concern "another fear tactic."

The three documented deployments sit in the same record. In San Antonio on 20 May, nine ICE officers appeared at a vehicle in the parking lot of a voting location within view of people heading to the polls, and the Bexar County Sheriff told the federal agents to vacate the polling area. In Simi Valley on 2 June, several vehicles with ICE agents, including at least one officer wearing a mask and bulletproof vest, lingered in the parking lot for about 30 minutes. In Syracuse on 23 June, several agents entered a polling location to confront an election worker who had criticised ICE on her personal Instagram account; the Republican Onondaga County elections commissioner said "There was no emergency. They weren't investigating an ongoing crime. There was no threat to public safety."

The complaint rests on news reporting and congressional transcripts. There are no sworn declarations, no photographs and no named eyewitnesses in it.

The statute is 18 U.S.C. 592, which bars any officer of the United States from ordering or keeping armed men at a place where an election is held, unless necessary to repel armed enemies, and which since the 1909 amendment no longer contains the exception for keeping the peace at the polls. Alongside it are the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. 10307(b), where no subjective intent need be shown, and 18 U.S.C. 1385. The DSCC complaint brings two counts, one under the Administrative Procedure Act and one under the Voting Rights Act alone, against ICE, DHS and the FBI and their heads.

The limit here is legal rather than factual, and election lawyers have been clear about it. Section 592 has always been read primarily as barring troops, and ICE agents conducting ordinary enforcement near a polling place is not per se unlawful. The Syracuse incident is the strongest allegation because it was a targeted visit rather than incidental presence. That distinction is the fault line, and the midterms arrive before any court tests it.

Where this stands, three weeks out#

The consolidated suit was filed on 23 September 2026 and is being consolidated by agreement with two companion cases. The government's answer is due 27 November 2026, which is more than three weeks after the 3 November election. The FOIA case is in the fee phase. No production, no hearing and no injunction will touch this election.

A University of San Diego survey found roughly 40 percent of voters now think ICE agents will be present at voting locations in their area, and a third or more of Democrats, Republicans and independents said so. Voters of colour were significantly more likely than white voters to say they feared voting could put them at risk of being questioned by immigration authorities despite being citizens.

What the record establishes is narrow and solid. An agency reported that it held nothing, reversed when confronted with its own public statements, and then spent its court-ordered quota on material the requester had excluded. A document that DHS itself judged relevant was never produced, and the reason given for keeping it out is now an exemption claim rather than an administrative error. And the agency's own internal preparation contains a pre-written answer to the only question that matters, with that answer redacted.

No leak was required for any of this. Every step is a filing.