By last spring, ICE was already laying the groundwork to interfere in the midterms. Explosive new documents show that it had investigated groups that register voters, considered infiltrating some of them with undercover agents, and amassed tens of millions of voter records.

For months, I have been sounding the alarm that ICE will be used to suppress voters and block people from casting their ballots. These records show that, behind the scenes, it is already carrying out Trump's orders.

None of this is an accident. When President Donald Trump returned to office, he set out to build an army ahead of the midterms — one that would answer to him and only him.

Enter ICE.

Unlike members of the military and the National Guard, ICE agents are not professional soldiers. They lack the discipline and training of other federal law enforcement officers. They have proven themselves willing to do anything Trump asks.

We have seen the damage ICE has done on the streets: terrorizing communities and killing civilians. Now we know what it has been doing out of sight.

Internal government documents obtained by the legal nonprofit Democracy Forward reveal that ICE's investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations, has worked with other government agencies to investigate nonprofits registering citizens to vote. Time and again, the documents show that these investigations turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.

Yet, investigators considered using undercover agents to infiltrate some of these groups. And the records also show HSI monitored this year's primary elections for potential threats to "election integrity."

Worst of all, the newly released records reveal that the government has collected tens of millions of voter records — some from unknown sources. The Department of Justice obtained more than 50 million documents. These likely include unredacted voter rolls that more than a dozen Republican-led states voluntarily handed over.

The most worrisome records, however, came from Heather Honey, a prominent election denier who now serves as a senior adviser at both DHS and ICE. According to the documents, Honey obtained nearly 50 million records — almost as many as the Justice Department provided — from "independent sources of information."

The documents do not identify these independent sources. We do not know whether some are records she brought with her from her work outside of government. We do not know if they were given to her by outside election-denier groups.

What we do know is that HSI ingested them, along with the Justice Department's records, into its voter fraud operation. That data could be used to target voters for disenfranchisement and to question election results Trump does not like.

Voter data is the building block of everything in politics. You need it to register voters, turn them out on Election Day, and redraw districts. And if you're trying to subvert an election, you also need it to suppress voters.

This is the information Trump is after. He wants to use it to influence election procedures and decide who is allowed to vote.

When misused, voter data can be used to wrongly purge eligible voters. A name change, a new address, a missing piece of information — the administration can turn almost anything into an excuse to remove voters from the rolls, particularly voters who are more likely to vote blue.

The documents also suggest ICE is trying to share these voter records outside the government, where they could be weaponized even further.

For example, the documents indicate that ICE tried to share voter data with Palantir — the data analytics company co-founded by conservative billionaire Peter Thiel. A July report said voter roll data from six states was awaiting entry into Palantir's ELITE system, an ICE tool used to identify and locate people targeted for immigration enforcement. It’s not clear that the data was entered into the system.

As noted earlier, this is happening at the same time the Trump administration is targeting organizations that register voters. By vilifying these organizations, spreading lies about them, and weighing undercover operations against them, the administration can drive down voter registration and turnout.

To be clear, it is not illegal to register voters. It is not illegal to encourage voting. Civic engagement is critical to democracy.

Donald Trump and his cronies are doing these things because they are losing and they know it. Democrats are polling well in states that haven't voted blue in decades. Trump's policies are unpopular, his endorsement is poison, and Republicans are hanging on to their House majority by a thread.

That's why Trump is mobilizing his ICE foot soldiers to do the dirty work.

I won't lie to you: the documents Democracy Forward obtained worried me. They should worry you. But they also encouraged me to fight harder.

I recently wrote to you that I was tired. I have been traveling. I've been working long hours. I've been getting very little sleep.

Reading that ICE already has access to our voter data gave me a boost of energy. I can be tired when the elections are over and the threat has passed. Now is the time to fight.