This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s partnership with NOTUS, a nonpartisan news organization that covers government and politics with the fresh eyes of early career journalists and the expertise of veteran reporters.
Election officials and lawmakers are alarmed that the administration hasn’t been clear about the circumstances under which it would send federal agents to the polls in November.
Elections have been a clear target for the second Trump administration as the president seeks more federal control over how states run their elections — President Donald Trump has made passage of the SAVE America Act, a voter ID bill that would make it more difficult for many Americans to register to vote and cast their ballots, a priority for Congress.
And for months, the Department of Homeland Security has also refused to rule out the possibility of sending agents to polls.
“I am very concerned about this and they need to make commitments that they’re going to have free and fair voting places,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar told NOTUS. “I think there’s going to be a lot of litigation because to me, that’s where it feels like they’re headed. They’re trying to scare people so they don’t want to vote.”
In his confirmation hearing, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said that he couldn’t “guarantee hypothetically what threat would be” at a polling place that would warrant sending agents to the polls.
“The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation,” Mullin said at his committee confirmation hearing in response to a question from Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin about whether he felt he had the authority to place uniformed officers at polling places.
That answer was similar to the one given by his predecessor, Kristi Noem, who had also refused to rule out the possibility while also saying the agency had “no plans” to have ICE officers at polling locations.
Nine secretaries of state wrote a letter to Mullin during his confirmation process asking for a definitive response on whether federal agents could be expected at the polls this November.
“Every time there’s sort of a new either outrageous or unusual use of ICE being in places where they would not normally need to be, it gives people concern. And of course, one of the biggest concerns folks have is that people who are otherwise eligible to vote, citizens, will just stay home,” New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, one of the election officials who signed the letter, told NOTUS.
For example, she said that tribal members in her state have been mistaken as immigrants by DHS agents in immigration enforcement operations.
David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said that the “law is extremely clear” around deploying armed forces around polling locations. Federal law bars armed “troops or armed men” from being deployed near a polling location, unless to repel “armed enemies of the United States.”
“If there’s any attempt to deploy troops or armed men at voting locations, I’m 100% confident that courts are going to strike this down immediately,” Becker said.
“Those who are scared of the American voter and act out of fear of the American voter rarely find a way to stop the American voter from making their voice heard,” Becker said.
Federal immigration agents could, however, try and intercept people “outside of the electioneering zone,” said Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute. That type of chilling effect, he argued, could have an outsize influence on which party will control the House of Representatives.
“I think it’s a perfectly plausible activity if [White House officials] pick in advance 10 to 20 districts to be outside where that kind of activity could materially suppress the vote enough to actually have a determinative effect in favor of the Republicans,” Eddington said.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson referred NOTUS to a video of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a briefing in early February.
“That’s not something I’ve ever heard the president consider, no,” Leavitt said when asked if Trump was considering sending ICE agents to polling locations.
“I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November,” Leavitt said when the reporter followed up. “That’s frankly a very silly hypothetical question. But what I can tell you is I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations. It’s a disingenuous question.”
In a call with state election officials in February, the DHS senior election integrity official Heather Honey, a vocal denier of Trump’s 2020 election loss, reportedly also said that ICE would not be at the polls this November.
But the comments made by Mullin and Noem have put Democrats and election officials on edge. And outside voices are weighing in to encourage the administration. Last week, Trump ally Steve Bannon said on his podcast that the administration should be looking at ICE’s deployment to airports as a “test case” to “perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm election.”
In the past two months, as a response to the administration’s hedging, at least eight states have introduced or passed legislation that would, in various manners, limit federal agents’ access to the polls.
In Virginia, legislation that would compel federal agents to stay at least 40 feet away from a polling place passed the state general assembly. While the administration has not said it would deploy agents to the polls, lawmakers at the state level are preparing themselves for the possibility.
“That makes me more concerned,” said Katrina Callsen, a Virginia state delegate who introduced the legislation, when asked about Mullin’s comments at his confirmation hearing. “That is not shutting the door, that is leaving it open with this kind of ambiguous, undefined way why there might need to be federal agents at our polling places. So if he cannot clearly define and illustrate and point out what he is anticipating, no, I don’t feel comfortable.”
Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, were not alarmed by the remarks.
“The Democrats have said they don’t want ICE agents at polling places,” Sen. James Lankford, a Republican member of the Homeland Security Committee, told NOTUS. “The obvious question is, people that are not legally present shouldn’t be at a polling place. What is the issue here?”
The Republican Party has made election security and immigration enforcement cornerstones of their messaging in recent years and have often tied the two together.
“If it’s necessary from a law enforcement perspective, I hope it wouldn’t be. I can’t imagine the rationale for it other than if they thought there was mass illegal voting,” Sen. Josh Hawley, another Republican committee member, told NOTUS.