Missouri AG Launches Last-Ditch Immigration Probe into Referendum that Threatens GOP Gerrymander

In the latest attempt to intimidate voters, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) launched a sweeping immigration-focused investigation into the signature-gathering firm behind the referendum that threatens to overturn the GOP’s mid-decade gerrymander.

Hanaway issued a Civil Investigative Demand (CID), a subpoena-like order, accusing Advanced Micro Targeting (AMT) of using undocumented workers to gather petition signatures for the anti-gerrymander campaign.

“We have issued a Civil Investigative Demand to Advanced Micro Targeting amid reports it’s using illegal immigrants for petition signature efforts and misleading clients about its workers’ ineligible status,” Hanaway announced Tuesday. “Missourians, not illegal labor hired by out-of-state interests, should determine our elections.”

The attorney general has yet to release evidence or reports supporting the allegations.

The document her office sent AMT demands a list of all workers, months of payroll records, internal emails, hiring documents, immigration paperwork, training materials and “the fronts and backs” of workers’ identity documents.

“This investigation will inquire into the activities and representations of Subject in using and/or supplying undocumented immigrant labor to clients, without disclosing the workers’ ineligibility to clients and other interested business associates whose interests could be harmed as a result of the workers’ undocumented status,” the order states. “The Attorney General has reason to believe that Subject’s conduct in the aforementioned areas and others involves deception and/or unfair practices.”

AMT has 21 days to comply with Hanaway’s demands or face legal action and possible contempt charges from the state.

People Not Politicians, the coalition pushing the referendum, has already collected more than 200,000 signatures to suspend the legislature’s new congressional gerrymander. Well above the minimum threshold to qualify, even as GOP officials threaten to invalidate as much as 90,000 of those signatures. 

The referendum’s looming success and threat to the GOP’s gerrymander has galvanized a wave of retaliatory measures from public officials over the past weeks. 

But Hanaway’s latest action is by far the most expansive — and potentially the most adverse.

The language of the CID confirms that Hanaway intends to scrutinize every aspect of AMT’s workforce — not just recent hires, but every worker used “since July 17, 2023,” including their identity documents, immigration paperwork and any internal discussions of work eligibility.

The probe follows Hanaway’s earlier claims, posted last week, that the referendum effort was enabling “exploitation and human trafficking” and had already been referred to ICE. 

She offered no evidence then either and ICE has not publicly commented on her referral.

Her immigration-themed messaging matches national Republican fear-based rhetoric meant to delegitimize the democratic process by tying it to “out-of-state” and “foreign” forces, even as Missourians across the political spectrum continue to sign petitions at a rapid pace.

Hanaway’s CID is only the newest front in an increasingly coordinated effort to derail the anti-gerrymander referendum before signatures are due on Dec. 11. The immigration probe now adds the state’s most powerful law enforcement office to the pile.

For signature-gathering employees — many of whom travel between states for petition campaigns — the public threat of an immigration investigation carries an immediate chilling effect. 

Even unfounded claims can push canvassers to flee the state, abandon signature gathering efforts or seed distrust among voters approached by petitioners.