Denver and Voting Rights Groups Sue to Block Armed ICE Agents From Polling Places

A coalition of voting rights groups and the city of Denver filed a lawsuit Thursday, September 10, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to block the Trump administration from deploying armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling places during November's midterm elections.

The plaintiffs are the League of United Latin American Citizens, Common Cause, UnidosUS, and the city and county of Denver, Colorado. The suit was filed by the legal group Democracy Forward and names the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and ICE leader David Venturella as defendants.

The legal theory rests on 18 U.S.C. 592, a federal statute first enacted in the final months of the Civil War that makes it a crime to order or maintain "any troops or armed men" at a place where an election is held, according to Democracy Forward. The only exception is to "repel armed enemies of the United States." The lawsuit argues the administration's stated policy defies that 150-plus-year-old prohibition.

The suit follows a string of ambiguous statements from top officials. Democracy Forward's complaint points to a September 1 statement from Noem confirming ICE officers could enter polling places to serve warrants or conduct enforcement activity. At a news conference earlier this month, Noem told reporters "ICE isn't there to patrol the polling places," but added agents could show up if there's "a threat" to a site or to serve a warrant on someone "actively" being tracked down. "If we're serving a warrant, we will be where we need to be," she said.

The administration's defense centers on a key distinction: officials are not describing routine immigration sweeps at ballot boxes, but narrow scenarios involving specific threats or active warrants that could theoretically arise anywhere, including near a polling site. Whether that reassurance holds up against 18 U.S.C. 592 is now a question for a federal judge.

The ambiguity has a history. Then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in the spring she "can't guarantee that an ICE agent won't be around a polling location in November," according to The Independent. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche questioned at CPAC in March why there would be any "objection" to sending ICE officers to polls. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called on ICE to "surround the polls" in February. Then-Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said in May there was "no reason" for ICE to be deployed to polling places, a statement that conflicts with more recent comments from officials, according to reporting cited by The Independent.

Democracy Forward's complaint also cites the Justice Department's decision earlier this year to end long-standing guidance restricting federal law enforcement activity at polling places, and says ICE has already conducted enforcement actions at voting sites in Texas and New York, according to Common Dreams.

UnidosUS president Janet Murguía called the policy "voter suppression, plain and simple," per Common Dreams. LULAC CEO Juan Proaño said the administration "continues in its endless attempts to weaken the very institutions it is entrusted to protect."

The administration's underlying justification for aggressive enforcement around elections has been noncitizen voting fraud, which Trump has repeatedly called widespread. The evidence doesn't back that up. A Reuters analysis found only 73 people convicted of illegal noncitizen voting over the past three decades. The right-leaning Heritage Foundation's own tally found about 100 proven cases dating back to 2000, roughly 0.0001% of total votes cast in that span. Whatever the administration's stated rationale for a heightened ICE posture near elections, it is not supported by documented fraud at any meaningful scale in these sources.

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois told CNN's "The Arena" that he expects Trump to send ICE and CBP agents in "camouflage uniforms" carrying "automatic weapons" to polling places, comparing it to deployments he says happened in Chicago and Minnesota. No source confirms a formal directive to that effect. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said the military itself has no plans to send troops or National Guard soldiers to polling places.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to act before early voting expands later this month in several states, ahead of the November 3 midterms. No hearing date has been set in the filings reviewed. The Department of Homeland Security has not filed a public response to the complaint as of Thursday.