DHS Flagged 185 Nevada Voters as Non-Citizens. All Were Citizens.

What if the government says you are not a citizen — but you are? That is exactly what happened to 185 people on Nevada's voter rolls. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent their records to Nevada election officials as suspected non-citizens. Nevada reviewed every single one. All 185 were confirmed US citizens.

How DHS Got It So Wrong

The problem started in July, when President Trump claimed DHS had found a combined 278,000 non-citizens on voter rolls in Nevada, California, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. By August, DHS had narrowed its Nevada list to 185 people — and told state staffers those 185 were confirmed non-citizens. But Nevada's deputy attorney general, Greg Ott, wrote to DHS this week saying the state's own records showed every one of those 185 individuals was a citizen. "You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise," Ott wrote in an email obtained by the New York Times and Nevada Independent.

Ott's letter also exposed a serious flaw in DHS's matching process. Nevada recently moved from county-level voter registration systems to a single statewide system, assigning new voter ID numbers in the process. The same number can appear in connection with different people at different points in time. DHS matched records using only voter ID numbers — and refused to share names, addresses, or any other data point when Nevada asked. That means a number match alone was treated as evidence of non-citizenship, even though it says nothing about whether a person was born in the US, naturalized, or derived citizenship through a parent. Pennsylvania's top election official, Al Schmidt, reported a similar problem: DHS representatives told his office they did not have "high confidence" in their own claim of up to 14,576 non-citizens on Pennsylvania's rolls, according to a letter obtained by Votebeat.

Why This Matters for Immigrants and Naturalized Citizens

Naturalized citizens and long-term green card holders are most at risk when government databases contain errors. A bad data match can trigger scrutiny of your immigration status, affect your voter registration, or even lead to wrongful removal proceedings. DHS still has more than 14,000 Nevada records under review — and has not explained its methodology publicly.

What to do

• If you are a naturalized citizen, keep a copy of your Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570) in a safe place. This is your primary proof of citizenship if a government agency questions your status.
• If you receive any letter from DHS or a state election office questioning your citizenship, do not ignore it. Contact an immigration lawyer before responding — a wrong answer can create a record that is hard to correct later.
• Check your voter registration status directly through your state's official election website. If your registration was flagged or canceled, your state's election office can tell you the reason and how to appeal.
• If you believe you were wrongly identified as a non-citizen in any government database, an immigration attorney can help you request your records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and challenge the error.