A coalition of civil rights groups and voting rights advocates are suing to block Donald Trump’s administration from deploying immigration enforcement agents to polling places on Election Day.
The administration has not explicitly outlined plans to send armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to the polls, but top officials have repeatedly suggested that federal agents could show up to respond to “threats” or make an immigration arrest.
But that’s illegal, according to Thursday’s lawsuit, which was joined by the city of Denver. Under federal law, the only reason federal agents or the U.S. military can show up to polling places is to “repel armed enemies of the United States,” the lawsuit states.
“The specter of armed officers at polling places threatens the freedom of this upcoming election,” according to the complaint.
That threat “places voters in fear that they will be confronted by armed federal immigration enforcement officers if they choose to cast a ballot” and “makes it more difficult for state and local election officials and law enforcement to do their jobs by making polling places spaces of confrontation,” the groups wrote.
The lawsuit follows a series of public statements from top administration officials clarifying the role, if any, that ICE could play in upcoming midterm elections, with the balance of power in Congress — and fate of Trump’s remaining years in office — at stake.
The president, meanwhile, has not dismissed the idea of declaring a national emergency to implement sweeping plans to overhaul election systems on a debunked conspiracy theory that millions of noncitizen voters are illegally casting ballots and manipulating the outcomes.
In a statement to The Independent, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that “ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations.”
“ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action,” the person said.
In February, after Trump pushed Republicans to “nationalize the voting,” former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called on ICE to “surround the polls.” Asked whether Trump is planning to send ICE agents to the polls, then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she “can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.”
During the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, now-Attorney General Todd Blanche questioned why there would be any “objection” to sending ICE officers to polling places.
In May, after several secretaries of state asked officials to clarify whether that was actually happening, then-Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said “there is no reason for ICE personnel to be deployed to polling places” but said that the agency “plays an important role in investigating voter fraud and will continue to perform this vital mission.”
That same month, armed ICE agents made an arrest in the parking lot outside a polling place in San Antonio, Texas. And in June, agents showed up to polling places in California and New York.
Agents questioned an election worker in Syracuse, New York, about her social media posts about an ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis, but the election worker was in the middle of her shift at the polling place while they confronted her.
“I don't understand what the concern is about enforcement of immigration at polling places anyways because honestly if you're not a citizen you shouldn't be voting anyways so technically there shouldn't be illegals at the polling spot,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said during his Senate confirmation hearing.
“The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation,” he added.
Earlier this month, Mullin did not dispel the idea of ICE agents at polling places with Election Day just weeks away.
He told reporters that “the only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down.”
“ICE’s job is immigration, customs enforcement,” he said. “If we’re serving a warrant we will be where we need to be.”
“The right to vote, and to do so without fear of intimidation, is fundamental to our democracy and to being an American,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in a Thursday statement.
“Stationing ICE agents near polling places is only meant to scare people and suppress votes,” he added. “We’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent it.”
Stationing armed agents at polling places “is a tactic used by dictators,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, president of voting rights group Common Cause.
“No American should ever have to walk past armed federal law enforcement just to cast a ballot, yet this administration has adopted a policy that allows exactly that,” she said.
Janet Murguía, president of Latino rights group UnidosUS, called the policy “voter suppression, plain and simple.”
“All Americans — including Latino voters — have a constitutional right to cast their ballot without fear of interrogation, detention, or family separation,” she said.
