ICE's Lyons Tells Colorado's Secretary of State There Is 'No Reason' for ICE at Polling Places, and That HSI 'Will Continue' Investigating Voter Fraud

What the letter says

Page 1 of the production (Bates 001) is a letter on the letterhead of the Office of the Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, signed by Todd M. Lyons as “Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director.” It is addressed to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and answers her March 9, 2026 letter to DHS.

The letter characterises Griswold’s request this way: she asked “for confirmation that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and special agents won’t be present at voting and election administration locations during the 2026 election.” It answers that ICE’s mission is protecting the United States “from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety,” executed through “the enforcement of more than 400 federal statutes.”

Then the two sentences the entry is about:

“Therefore, as previously stated, there is no reason for ICE officers and special agents to be deployed to polling places. ICE officers and special agents are sworn federal immigration officers who arrest aliens for violating immigration and criminal laws. However, ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) plays an important role in investigating voter fraud, and will continue to perform this vital mission.”

The letter does not say agents will not be present, and it does not address election administration locations other than polling places. It states the absence of a reason to deploy; the second half states a continuing HSI role in voter-fraud investigations. A contact address at the ICE Office of Partnership and Engagement is redacted (b)(7)(E).

Date

The letter has no date on the page. It answers a letter of March 9, 2026, so it was written after that. The entry is dated to the production (October 1, 2026, the date of ICE’s cover letter) and flagged date_is_publication_date; the date of the letter itself is not established by this document.

Why it matters alongside the rest of the production

The same production holds HSI’s weekly election-integrity reports (see 2026-06-01–hsi-election-integrity-report-honey-48-million-records-undercover-voter-groups), so the letter’s second sentence sits next to internal records of what that investigative role consists of. See 2026-10-07–democracy-forward-releases-ice-hsi-voter-fraud-weekly-reports-foia for Democracy Forward’s release of the production.

Not established

• The date of the letter.
• Whether Griswold’s March 9 letter, which this production does not include, is public elsewhere.