Two separate coalitions have filed federal lawsuits to keep armed federal officers away from polling locations, a move that tests whether the Trump administration's election-integrity push crosses a legal line drawn during the Civil War and reinforced by the Voting Rights Act.
The first lawsuit, filed in early September by a coalition that includes Denver clerk and recorder Paul López and the League of United Latin American Citizens, names the Department of Homeland Security as the defendant. NPR reported it was first to break news of the second suit, filed early Friday in Washington, D.C., by nine organizations, among them the NAACP, Mi Familia en Acción, OCA, Asian Pacific American Advocates, and four national unions, represented by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The two cases rest on different statutes but share the same target. The first, styled LULAC v. DHS, invokes a Civil War-era federal law that bars military or armed forces from election sites except when force is needed to repel armed enemies. The second argues that the administration's signals about deploying agents violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which makes it illegal to intimidate a person out of voting.
DHS told NPR that ICE "is not planning operations targeting polling locations." But the statement carried a caveat: if "an active public safety threat endangered a polling location," agents could make arrests as part of "intelligence-driven targeted enforcement." Earlier this month, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin went further, saying ICE agents could serve warrants at polling places.
Border czar Tom Homan told Fox News last week that agents would not be "sweeping polling places," though earlier in the year he questioned why anyone would be concerned by such activity in the first place. FBI Director Kash Patel, pressed at a contentious congressional hearing on Tuesday, refused to rule out FBI agents at the polls but said agents would "follow the law."
President Trump himself set the tone in May, saying he would do "anything necessary" to ensure "honest" elections when asked about federal agents at polling places. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the allegations in the Friday suit.
Those statements amount to a pattern, according to Brian Netter, the legal director at Democracy Forward and one of the attorneys behind the LULAC case. He called the administration's public remarks a "striking and disturbing departure from settled U.S. law."
The Friday complaint goes beyond the question of agents at polls. It describes DHS's "Unlawful Voter Initiative," a program that has surged resources toward identifying non-U.S. citizens on state voter rolls or who may have cast ballots. Federal authorities have charged a number of individuals with alleged illegal voting, though prior audits and investigations have found noncitizen voting to be extremely rare.
The lawsuit alleges that immigration officers are "reportedly using flawed methodologies and faulty data that will almost certainly result in the surveillance, investigation, and even unlawful detention of U.S. citizens, particularly those from communities of color." A whistleblower report published earlier that week backed up part of that claim, alleging the initiative was moving at breakneck speed and relying on unreliable data, leading to U.S. citizens being mistakenly flagged. DHS responded that its "investigative efforts are conducted diligently and professionally."
The suit also argues that the administration's rhetoric, combined with surges of immigration enforcement, has "targeted and terrorized communities with large Black, Latino and Asian populations," creating a "climate in which voters, especially voters of color, are intimidated and fearful of engaging in the democratic process."
Bethany Li, the executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, framed the case in historical terms:
"I think what we're seeing is a replay of all the fears and harms that Black communities experienced during the civil rights era that led to the Voting Rights Act in the first place. The whole idea was to prevent voter intimidation in similar form in the future. And that's exactly what we're seeing now from the federal government."
The lawsuits did not emerge in a vacuum. During this year's primary elections, multiple reports surfaced of federal law enforcement activity inside or near polling sites in various states. Just The News reported that the LULAC lawsuit names both Secretary Mullin and acting ICE head David Venturella as defendants, and quotes the complaint as arguing that armed agents at polls "disrupts voting and makes it more difficult for state and local election officials and law enforcement to do their jobs by making polling places spaces of confrontation."
Paul López, Denver's clerk and recorder, described a shift in voter anxiety that has reshaped his daily work:
"Every single meeting I have, there's somebody that asks the question, 'What can we do if federal agents are at the polls?'"
López did not stop at describing the problem. He laid out a warning:
"We have a plan put together just in case if that happens and it's not going to be a good day for any ICE agent or any other federal agent or anybody trying to intimidate anybody at the polls. They're going to face prison sentences."
Polling from the University of California San Diego, released the same week, found that roughly 40 percent of voters now believe it is likely ICE agents will be present at voting locations in their area. Voters of color were significantly more likely than white voters to say they feared voting could put them at risk of being questioned by immigration authorities, even though they are U.S. citizens.
The lawsuits represent one front. State legislatures have opened another. AP News reported that New Mexico became the first state to sign a law prohibiting armed federal agents within 50 feet of polling locations or monitored ballot boxes, effective in time for its June 2 primary. Similar measures are pending in at least a half dozen other states. Eight secretaries of state sent a letter to Mullin seeking written assurances that ICE would not be present at polling locations during the 2026 election cycle.
The Washington Examiner reported that the LULAC lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., and specifically targets the potential deployment of armed ICE officers during the 2026 midterm elections, citing the federal statute that bars military or armed forces from polling locations except to repel armed enemies of the United States.
Mullin, for his part, has accused Democrats of fearmongering, insisting ICE officers were not patrolling polling locations and would only appear to address a threat or serve a warrant. That assurance sits uneasily beside his own earlier statement that ICE agents could serve warrants at polls, a distinction that may matter more to a lawyer than to a voter watching armed officers approach a precinct entrance.
Héctor Sánchez Barba, the president and CEO of Mi Familia en Acción, kept his public message simple: "Know your rights, make a plan to vote, and make your voice heard." But the legal filings behind that message are anything but simple. They ask courts to draw a hard line between lawful election oversight and federal overreach that chills participation.
The administration's stated goal, rooting out noncitizen voting, is legitimate on its face. Illegal voting is a crime, and every fraudulent ballot dilutes a lawful one. But a legitimate goal pursued through sloppy data, contradictory public statements, and the specter of armed agents at the polls risks doing more damage to public confidence in elections than the problem it claims to solve. If the Unlawful Voter Initiative is flagging U.S. citizens by mistake, and if administration officials cannot agree on whether agents will or will not show up at polling places, the lawsuits write themselves.
Voters deserve clean rolls and safe polls. They should not have to wonder whether casting a ballot will invite a confrontation with a federal officer, and an administration serious about election integrity should want to make that distinction unmistakably clear.
