Warnings About ICE at the Polls Risk Their Own Kind of Voter Suppression

Anxiety over ICE (immigration enforcement agency) at the polls is a double-edged sword for the Trump administration: There’s the fear that federal immigration agents will illegally descend on voters, and there’s the threat that by boosting awareness of that fear, activists and journalists will help the federal government carry out the work of voter intimidation. “Even just rumors of [ICE at the polls] are going to spread fear. More than fearing ICE would actually approach the polls, Padilla and several organizers working on election integrity and voting rights in Texas told The Intercept they were worried that journalists amplifying the Trump administration’s stated plans to “ surround the polls ” with ICE and federal agents could function as an inadvertent form of voter suppression. Federal and state law prohibits federal immigration agents from being inside polling sites and bar any form of voter intimidation. Those laws haven’t stopped the Trump administration and its allies from threatening to deploy ICE and military personnel around the country during elections. Texas is home to one of the most dramatic potential Senate upsets in the country, with Democratic state Rep. When ICE showed up at a polling site in San Antonio in May — marking the first known case of ICE at the polls in the country during this year’s primaries — the county sheriff kicked the agents out . By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . She said she hasn’t heard much concern about ICE showing up around polling sites in Tarrant County, where she’s based and where people can vote at any polling site in the county. But still, for voters in hotspots of ICE activity and other forms of voter suppression , the group has told them to consider voting at a different eligible site, she said. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse.