Denver city leaders on Thursday joined national civil rights groups to sue the Trump administration to stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from entering polling places to arrest people.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., asserts that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE Director David Venturella are breaking a federal law that protects free and fair elections by allowing armed agents to enter voting locations, including to arrest people for civil immigration violations.
“The specter of armed officers at polling places threatens the freedom of this upcoming election,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. “It places voters in fear that they will be confronted by armed federal immigration enforcement officers if they choose to cast a ballot.”
In response, an unnamed Homeland Security spokesperson said ICE is not planning operations targeting polling places. The agency “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,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
That statement, cited verbatim in the lawsuit, is the same one DHS officials released after Mullin on Sept. 1 said at polling places but are not patrolling those areas.
But the lawsuit argues that the presence of armed federal agents at voting locations violates a Civil War-era federal law that from being “at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.”
The case is the first lawsuit against the administration over such actions.
ICE has already targeted Denver for immigration action, attorneys wrote in the complaint, citing a Denver Post report about an Ecuadorian woman who was detained by federal agents at Denver International Airport.
“Election officials in Denver reasonably expect that the presence of armed federal law enforcement officers at election sites would disrupt (voting) activities and intimidate voters and election workers,” attorneys said in the lawsuit.
The right to vote without fear of intimidation is fundamental to democracy and being an American, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in a statement.
“Stationing ICE agents near polling places is only meant to scare people and suppress votes,” Johnston said. “We’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent it.”
Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul López said in a statement the right to vote is enshrined in the country’s constitution and code.
“Denver is the vanguard of democracy, and with cast-iron certainty we will protect our free and fair elections from any and all attempts at federal intimidation and intrusion,” he said.
In the lawsuit, Denver officials said the city is home to a large immigrant population, making it a likely target for ICE operations during the midterm election.
The presence of armed officers could deter residents from casting votes or dropping off mail-in ballots and could fuel anxiety among election workers and volunteers, they said in the lawsuit. Election officials in Denver have already scheduled training for election workers on how to identify federal agents in plain clothes, document their presence and de-escalate interactions, according to the lawsuit.
The groups involved in the lawsuit — Common Cause; the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC; and UnidosUS — also said recent ICE activity at polling locations is already chilling voter registration drives, canvassing efforts and civic participation in the electoral process. The organizations have also diverted funding, staff time and ad space away from standard voter mobilization efforts toward establishing rapid-response safety networks, “Vote Safe from ICE” educational materials and de-escalation training.
In a statement, Janet Murguía, the president and CEO of UnidosUS, said sending officers into polling locations was “not immigration enforcement” but “voter suppression, plain and simple.”
The lawsuit pointed to three instances in May and June when federal immigration agents converged on polling sites in Texas, California and New York, including when ICE agents entered a polling site in Syracuse, New York, to interrogate an election volunteer over a social media post that she made five months earlier regarding the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Homeland Security’s “polling place policy,” as described by Mullin in September, echoes and allies over the last year that ICE can be at polling places in November, the lawsuit argued.
In the complaint, attorneys asked a judge to declare the DHS policy unlawful, to rule that DHS and ICE do not have lawful authority to bring armed officers into polling places and to prohibit them from doing so.
contributed to this report.
