The Department of Homeland Security has gone to extraordinary lengths over the past several months to track down noncitizen voters, to the point where hundreds of federal immigration officers have been reassigned from their usual duties to search for potential voter fraud.

The campaign — or as DHS calls it, the “Unlawful Voter Initiative” — has been so aggressive that, according to one recent federal whistleblower, investigators may have broken state laws at the behest of desperate DHS leaders.

At face value, it might seem as if this crusade to address a problem that doesn’t actually exist is profoundly wasteful and counterproductive, but to hear Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin tell it, the efforts have paid dividends: The Cabinet secretary recently claimed that there were as many as 15,903 noncitizens on the voter rolls in Nevada.

The specificity of the claim might’ve led some to believe that Mullin’s statistic had some merit. It did not. The New York Times reported: When the Department of Homeland Security sent Nevada a list of 185 names last month that it claimed identified noncitizens who had been improperly allowed to to vote, state election officials got to work.

On Tuesday, the state sent a strongly worded rebuke to the federal government: Every single person on the list was a lawful citizen. The Trump administration began with the 15,903 figure, although Trump administration officials later conceded this total was unsubstantiated. Under pressure from officials in Nevada, who were understandably eager to address the highly controversial claims, a DHS official sent an email that read in part, “We’ve manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens.” That, in and of itself, was a rather remarkable reduction (185 is roughly 1% of 15,903), but according to state officials who scrutinized the administration’s list, the 185 people whom DHS “confirmed” to be noncitizens were actually citizens.

Under pressure from officials in Nevada, who were understandably eager to address the highly controversial claims, a DHS official sent an email that read in part, “We’ve manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens.” That, in and of itself, was a rather remarkable reduction (185 is roughly 1% of 15,903), but according to state officials who scrutinized the administration’s list, the 185 people whom DHS “confirmed” to be noncitizens were actually citizens.

In other words, Mullin referenced the 15,903 figure, when the truth proved to be zero. The Times obtained a copy of a letter sent to DHS by Nevada’s deputy attorney general, who explained, “As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens. You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise.” None of this is especially surprising, as Republicans have spent years desperately searching in vain for evidence of a systemic problem, but nevertheless it’s a brutal embarrassment for the administration that will never catch its white whale.

The Times obtained a copy of a letter sent to DHS by Nevada’s deputy attorney general, who explained, “As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens. You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise.” None of this is especially surprising, as Republicans have spent years desperately searching in vain for evidence of a systemic problem, but nevertheless it’s a brutal embarrassment for the administration that will never catch its white whale.