Voting Rights Groups Are Preparing to Confront ICE at the Polls

After dozens of violent raids and untimely deaths in squalid jails, as well as several high-profile killings at the hands of President Donald Trump’s immigration police, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters on Tuesday that he “can’t guarantee” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents won’t be present at the polls when voters arrive to cast ballots in upcoming elections.

Trump ally Steve Bannon is calling for an “up-armored ICE presence” to “surround the polls come November,” and Democrats are increasingly worried about voter suppression as Republicans in Congress face a potential midterm rebuke from voters. With Trump once again raising false alarms about immigrants engaging in voter fraud, and a broader crackdown on free speech and dissent underway, the prospect of poorly trained ICE recruits intimidating people at polling sites in majority Black and Brown neighborhoods is a top concern.

While Mullin said ICE would respond to “specific threats” rather than “patrol the polling place,” he indicated that a report of an undocumented person could be reason enough to deploy agents at or near a polling site. Shortly after taking office, Trump officials ditched rules that prohibited immigration arrests at public locations such as schools that often host elections. In cruel displays that go viral online, masked ICE agents have arrested parents dropping kids off at school and at school bus stops.

“If we’re serving a warrant, we will be where we need to be,” Mullin said.

Midterm voters could play a major role in reining in ICE’s neighborhood invasions and deadly violence if they reject pro-ICE incumbents in the midterms and make Trump a true lame duck — but in order to do so they would need to overcome racist gerrymandering and efforts by the administration and right-wing forces to suppress turnout. Organizers have been preparing for this moment since at least June 2025, when Trump sent federal troops to occupy Los Angeles, California, as ICE conducted raids and mass protests erupted, according to Mary Corcoran, executive director of the Save America Movement.

“Just having the possibility of them showing up in the air could create a chilling effect on people’s willingness to come to the polls; we’ve seen situations where ICE shoots first and asks your immigration status later,” Corcoran told Truthout in an interview. “I think it’s not hard to understand why people who are not going to their jobs right now may not go to vote.”

Since the occupation of Los Angeles, ICE and, in several cases, federal troops have invaded Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New Orleans, Memphis, Charlotte, and other cities with large populations of immigrants and people of color. The resulting violence and mass incarceration of immigrant families and children with no criminal record in squalid detention camps has inspired serious political backlash, and many of the most impacted areas have seen mass protests and an explosion of mutual aid.

“But what we saw in all of those incidents is people coming together to speak up and take action and say, this has gone too far,” said Cristina Jiménez, co-founder of United We Dream and Connected Americans, a project connecting people impacted by ICE, in an interview with Truthout. “The same spirit and the same energy will be there for the election.”

As abuses have mounted and as Trump’s approval ratings have tumbled, organizers have decided that the possibility of armed federal agents showing up at voting precincts in largely Black and Latino communities is real, Corcoran said.

“As the numbers began to point to even more of a ‘blue wave,’ our perspective was that possibility would increase,” Corcoran said. “Having ICE show up for whatever false reason they are showing up for at the precinct is another way to intimidate voters.”

On September 2, the Save America Movement and a non-partisan coalition announced Vote Safe, a voter protection program and one of several activist efforts to counter racist voter suppression. Led by civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, Vote Safe is organizing hundreds of trained volunteers — veterans, clergy, firefighters, and other trusted local figures — to be at polls in key districts that are most likely to be targeted by ICE based on Trump’s previous efforts to subvert elections.

“What we asked ourselves is, what would Stephen Miller do?” Corcoran said. “Where would he send these folks if he was trying to impact an election outcome? And that is how we designed the program.”

While Vote Safe is non-partisan and supports voters of all backgrounds, the trained poll watchers will focus on swing districts with large numbers of Black, Latino, and Asian voters in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan.

Weingarten said the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act “right on schedule” for the midterms, and now Republicans are leaning on fear to “finish the job.” By communicating with Black, Asian, and Latino voters before early voting begins and through Election Day with assurances that trusted neighbors and local leaders will have their backs at the polls, Vote Safe is designed to help potential voters overcome any fear or hesitancy about casting a ballot.

“The threat of armed federal agents descending on polling places is an attempt to intimidate us and control who gets to hold power in this country. It won’t work,” Weingarten said in a statement on Tuesday. “Vote Safe exists so that people know the community has their backs at the ballot box, with someone standing beside them who knows their rights and knows the law, so that fear doesn’t get the last word.”

Such a strategy has already been tested in Washington, D.C., where the DC Election Protection Coalition trained both volunteer poll watchers and voting rights attorneys to support voters during elections that were held in June. The city has been under a National Guard occupation ordered by Trump for more than a year, and Trump’s gaudy July 4 celebrations brought additional National Guard troops alongside federal and local police to public spaces across the city.

Carmen Daugherty, interim executive director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights group in the DC Election Protection Coalition, said volunteers monitored polling sites, watching for closures and observing areas where National Guard troops were already on patrol near polling locations. On Election Day, volunteers monitored the polling location, ready to call attorneys if troops were spotted near voters — or if troops attempted to enter a polling place in violation of local law. Poll watchers also took notes.

“It’s important to have those first-hand accounts to show the narrative, in order to say, look at what is happening in this authoritarian moment of voter suppression,” Daugherty said. “There are more of us who care about fair and free accessible elections than those who want to suppress our vote, so we have to show up in numbers.”