WASHINGTON (AP) — With early voting already underway, a question worrying some voters is what role — if any — immigration enforcement officers might have at polling places through Election Day.
Department of Homeland Security officials say they don't plan to send immigration enforcement officers en masse to patrol the polls and dismissed concerns that they plan to do so as “fearmongering." Election legal experts say federal law clearly prevents the government
from deploying any armed troops, agents or officers to election sites except to “repel armed enemies of the United States,” a high bar to clear.
But organizations who represent Latino, Black and Asian American voters say the rhetoric and ICE's own activity make them worried at a time the number of immigration arrests is soaring as President Donald Trump carries out his mass deportation agenda.
During congressional testimony earlier this year, the then-acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, and the head of Customs and Border Protection, Rodney Scott, said they had no plans to send officers to the polls. Lyons has since left the position.
A Department of Homeland Security official also told state election administrators that immigration agents will not be stationed at the polls for the midterms.
In September, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin accused Democrats of “fearmongering” in raising concerns over ICE officers going to polling places. He said officers won't go to patrol or monitor polling places broadly, but could go for specific reasons such as arresting someone if they have a warrant or are responding to a threat.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was then the deputy attorney general, also weighed in on the issue, saying: “Why are there objections to sending ICE officers to polling places? Illegals can't vote.”
Trump, who has repeatedly raised the specter of widespread illegal noncitizen voting even as research and investigations show it is incredibly rare, hasn't said he would direct ICE officers to be at polling places but also hasn't ruled it out. When asked in May if he would send the National Guard or ICE to voting locations in November, he said: “I’d do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections. We have to have honest elections.”
In a Time magazine interview published Thursday, Trump responded, “Haven't thought of it,” when asked if he planned to dispatch ICE agents to polling places.
The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement to The Associated Press, said people in the country legally have “nothing to fear" and 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 Department also said they are "laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens.”
Federal law dating to the Civil War prohibits “troops or armed men” from being deployed to places where elections are being held “unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.”
“It is completely and obviously illegal,” said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who leads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. “As soon as there is an armed individual at a polling place, there will be a court action; jurisdictions are preparing for it.”
Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Washington-based nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, said his group interprets the law to include anywhere voting occurs, including polling places, early voting centers, drop boxes and election offices where ballots are delivered.
He thinks even the narrow scenarios Mullin laid out, such as ICE officers pursuing an individual warrant at the polls, are legally dubious.
“The statute does not carve out exceptions for routine law enforcement,” he said.
If ICE officers are near, but not at, the polls, it would raise legal questions that have not yet been considered, Diaz said. But there are several other federal and state statutes barring voter intimidation that could apply.
Local election officials addressed the possibility of federal agents showing up at the polls during a gathering this week in the nation's capital and said they had been preparing for it.
Dean Logan, who oversees Los Angeles County's elections, said while he welcomes people monitoring the election process, he does not want distractions for voters trying to cast their ballots.
“We’re going to make sure that we have boots on the ground to make sure the voter is not disrupted in that process,” he said during the meeting of the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions.
Trump administration critics point to the president’s comments saying he thinks Republicans should “take over the voting in at least 15 places.” They also note some longtime Trump allies, including right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon, welcoming an ICE presence at the polls.
Dan Freeman, litigation director for the Democratic National Committee, agrees there is a low likelihood of immigration agents at voting locations, but his team is prepared to go to court should the administration try.
“President Trump is not willing to rule it out. Secretary Mullin is not willing to rule it out. And so we have to be ready," Freeman said.
Activists who have filed lawsuits to prevent any ICE presence at polling locations say the rhetoric from the administration and its allies coupled with months of immigration enforcement activities have left Latino, Asian American, Black and other voters concerned.
Activists say many Latinos, even U.S. citizens, already limit everyday activities because they are worried about ICE. They say it doesn't take a lot to spread fear on Election Day.
Juan Proaño who heads the League of United Latin American Citizens, said ICE doesn't have to show up in force at numerous sites. Information spreading quickly on social media about one polling place could easily cause voters in other areas to stay away, he said.
“Just the mere presence of them in and around polling locations is enough of a deterrent for our community,” he said. “The threats that we’re getting now, that we are hearing today, are impacting the decisions that folks will make on Election Day.”
Activists point to an incident in Syracuse, New York, over the summer in which agents from Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of ICE that has largely taken the lead on investigating alleged voter fraud, went to a polling place to serve a written notice to a woman who they accused of publicly posting personal information about federal officers.
Despite the concerns, they are encouraging members of their communities to vote, reminding them of their rights and are stepping up efforts to assist voters with legal help.
Thu Nguyen, who heads OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, said the group is recruiting monitors to observe the election process in response to fears they've been hearing. Nguyen said their U.S. citizen members are concerned in part because ICE has detained Americans during past operations or because they might be related to someone without immigration status and fearful of drawing attention to them.
A nonpartisan coalition of Trump administration opponents said it is planning a program in areas with large minority voting populations — Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio — to boost voter confidence that they can cast a ballot safely. Those states also have competitive U.S. Senate races this year.
The program, called VoteSafe, includes recruiting trusted community leaders to help address voter hesitation associated with fears around armed agents at the polls, said Mary Corcoran, executive director of the Save America Movement and a leader in the effort.
“Our job is to overcome it,” she said.
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Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writers Gary Fields in Washington and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
