ICE Explored Using Palantir-Backed Deportation Tool to Track Alleged Illegal Voters, Documents Show
FOIA documents show ICE’s HSI processed DOJ voter rolls and USCIS data while coordinating plans to ingest them into ELITE, a Palantir-supported deportation-targeting tool. Palantir told WIRED voter data has never been integrated.
Internal emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Immigration and Customs Enforcement explored feeding voter roll data into a Palantir-supported enforcement tool normally used to identify deportation targets. The documents, published in October 2026 by legal advocacy group Democracy Forward, reveal that ICE has become central to federal voter fraud investigations under the Trump administration.
The tool in question is called ELITE — Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement — which was first reported in January 2026 by 404 Media. ICE agents using ELITE can generate maps of potential deportation targets, access individual files, and view a “confidence score” estimating a person’s current address. Palantir, the data analytics company that supports the tool, told WIRED that voter roll data has never been integrated into ELITE.
The documents show that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), one of ICE’s two major components, is leading the voter fraud effort through its internal Innovation Lab, known as iLab. In a May 26 email with “Voter Fraud” in the subject line, an HSI worker wrote that iLab was processing Department of Justice voting rolls and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, with efforts “underway” to incorporate criminal histories. The email described ongoing coordination “on ingesting processed voter roll data into the ELITE enforcement system.”
A July 7 email referencing an attachment named “Fraud WAR” — likely a weekly activity report — listed Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, and New Mexico as states that had “been enriched by the iLab and are pending Palantir entry into ELITE.” A separate email in the same chain noted that a DHS official planned to send the update to the White House.
The same document tranche also reveals that DHS officials investigated more than 150 nonprofit groups for allegedly helping noncitizens register to vote. Chinmayi Sharma, an associate professor at Fordham Law School who has tracked ELITE, told WIRED that the effort suggests a push to build a system capable of identifying and pursuing individuals for investigation — one that could draw on existing infrastructure and data sources.