WASHINGTON — Two Democratic secretaries of state said they were told the Trump administration isn’t planning to send federal immigration enforcement agents to polling locations during November’s congressional elections.
State officials were told during a call Wednesday with federal authorities that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents won’t be waiting outside voting locations, said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. She told reporters that the comment was welcome, but she added that “it would be completely unlawful and unconstitutional should the answer be anything different.”
State and federal officials have repeatedly clashed in the past year over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and concern is mounting that the upcoming elections will be a major flash point. Meanwhile, the federal government is suing more than 20 states for refusing to turn over current voter roll data.
“ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the agency, said in a statement. “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.”
However, Bellows said that, when pressed, federal officials wouldn’t agree to tell the public that states were in charge of elections.
“I did not walk away from this meeting reassured the federal government wouldn’t try to interfere in state sovereignty over the election,” she said.
The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s call and state officials’ comments about it. The statement sent by DHS didn’t address a question about state control of elections.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said the most unsettling aspect of the call was that neither agency “would help acknowledge that states run elections in America.” A fellow secretary of state asked for assurances, but received none that were “constitutionally appropriate,” according to Fontes.
Escalating matters, Trump recently called on Republicans to seize control of election processes from individual states, signaling that he may push for drastic measures to change the dynamics of the midterm elections.
During the president’s second term, the federal government has sued two dozen states for refusing to turn over current voter roll data. So far the states have had success in court, with lawsuits having been dismissed by judges in California, Oregon and Michigan. The Justice Department filed appeals in those cases this week.
Unsealed court filings recently revealed that an Federal Bureau of Investigation raid of a Georgia elections center and seizure of materials was part of a probe that originated with a lawyer who helped Trump unsuccessfully challenge results of the 2020 election.
Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, have filed a lawsuit demanding the return of the seized materials. A federal judge ordered mediation in the Georgia case late Wednesday. The judge directed Fulton County officials and the Trump administration to agree on a moderator by March 4 and report back by March 18 whether an agreement has been reached.
Story by Jimmy Jenkins and Chris Strohm Bloomberg News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
