Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed Tuesday that immigration agents could deploy to polling locations during November's midterms under certain circumstances, offering the administration's most specific comments yet on a scenario Democrats have warned could intimidate voters.
Speaking to reporters in New York City, Mullin insisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement wouldn't be patrolling polls generally, but acknowledged agents could show up if pursuing a specific threat or serving an active warrant, Politico reported.
"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," Mullin said.
The comments echo what Mullin told senators during his March confirmation hearing, when Democrats pressed him on exactly this scenario. DHS reinforced the message in a follow-up statement, insisting the agency isn't planning operations specifically targeting polling locations, but that arrests tied to active public safety threats could still happen to occur there.
Democrats have spent months raising alarms after Trump allies floated the idea of deploying ICE to polling sites, worried the tactic could be used to intimidate voters in states holding competitive House, Senate and governor's races this fall. Even a federal judge slammed the agency for refusing to be transparent about their plans to operate at polling sites. While the administration downplays any coordinated effort, DHS has already poured significant resources into scrutinizing state voter rolls for noncitizens, with Mullin describing the scope of that effort last month.
"We will scrub all election records, looking for illegal aliens and those who are ineligible to vote, including those that somehow voted, yet they were deceased," Mullin said in July.
With Mullin's latest comments leaving the door open to warrant-based ICE activity near polling sites, and no formal policy ruling it out entirely, voting rights advocates say the ambiguity itself could be enough to chill turnout of lawful citizens in immigrant communities this November.