By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-10 21:31:49 | Updated at 2026-09-10 22:41:24
1 hour ago
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents walk outside the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura, California, on July 27, 2026. Blake Fagan/AFP via Getty Images
The city of Denver has sued the Department of Homeland Security to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from being present at voting sites.
The lawsuit, filed on Sept. 10, comes ahead of the midterm elections and alleges that carrying out ICE duties at polling places violates the “troops at polls” law.
That law imposes fines or jail time for federal officers who show up to “any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on Sept. 1 that DHS authorizes ICE officers to go to polling places.
“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,” he said.
“ICE’s job is immigration, customs enforcement. That’s their job … if we’re serving a warrant we will be where we need to be,” he added.
Mullin noted that “ICE isn’t there to patrol the polling places.”
Along with Denver, the plaintiffs included the League of United Latin American Citizens, Common Cause, and UnidosUS.
“The specter of armed officers at polling places threatens the freedom of this upcoming election,” they wrote. “It places voters in fear that they will be confronted by armed federal law enforcement if they choose to cast a ballot.”
The plaintiffs also wrote that DHS did not consider “any evidence or testimony regarding the effect of authorizing armed officers to enter polling places on the integrity of our elections, states’ ability to conduct them in a free and fair manner, or voters’ fears about being confronted by federal force at the polls.”
The lawsuit cited a few instances where the Trump administration has declined to rule out sending ICE officers into polling places.
One of those was on Feb. 5, when then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she “can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.”
The lawsuit also noted a few cases where ICE agents were present at voting locations.
On May 20, armed ICE agents conducted enforcement activity in the parking lot of a polling place in San Antonio, where they detained someone in full view of voters before being asked to leave the premises by the county sheriff.
In response to the lawsuit, a DHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times 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.”
