ICE won’t rule out making arrests at polling places during the November midterm elections in the event of “an active public safety threat,” the Department of Homeland Security admitted to Raw Story.The details of what would constitute such a threat were left vague.The statement comes as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement faces an Aug. 7 deadline to begin turning over some 11,000 documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party, and Secretary Markwayne Mullin is threatening prison time for election officials who refuse to go along with a demand by the Trump administration that states purge alleged noncitizens from the voter rolls.“ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” the department said in an email to Raw Story last week that was attributed to a “DHS official.” “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.”The statement from DHS is the strongest signal yet of the administration’s intentions to potentially deploy federal agents or soldiers to polling places — an intimidation tactic promoted by Trump ally Steve Bannon that has raised alarms among Democrats and democracy advocates.ICE had previously told the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, it had no records in response to its FOIA Lawsuit seeking documents from DHS, the Department of Justice and Department of Defense on potential deployment of federal forces to voting sites and other election locations.But the agency was forced to take a second look after the DNC pointed to media reports on ICE agents showing up at voting sites during primary elections in Texas and California, and entering a polling place in New York state to question a poll worker about a social media post she made that was critical of the agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis.Separately, the government disclosed that the Department of Justice’s FOIA office is consulting with “other DOJ components and Executive Branch agencies,” suggesting a high-level review of 55 pages of “potentially responsive records,” according to the government’s report to a federal judge overseeing the case. The government has committed only to “issuing a response” on those documents by Saturday.While Democrats brace for the presence of ICE agents and other federal officers at polling places in November, the Trump administration is making wide-ranging claims about supposed foreign interference in U.S. elections and trumpeting a claim that DHS found 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls in four states — California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.David Becker, executive director of the pro-democracy group Center for Election Innovation & Research, cast doubt on that claim.“The public voter files used by the federal government do not have any unique identifiers, so no matter what list they compare to, there’s no methodologically sound way to get valid voter registration matches,” he said, adding that it’s impossible to accurately match names from public voter lists with commercial data if either is missing a Social Security number.“All you would get — and this may have been the intent — is a boatload of false positives,” Becker continued. “I suspect this is why DHS is hiding the ball, refusing to share its list with the states or even disclose in detail its methodology, even as they threaten the states. This number has no bearing on reality and may just as well have been made up.”DHS’s statement to Raw Story about ICE potentially making arrests at polling places echoes Mullins’ comments during an interview last month with CNN’s “State of the Union.”“ICE agents are there to flex, if we need to,” Mullin said. “You saw ICE at TSA lines, not processing, but in the soft areas. If a threat were to arise, for whatever reason, at a polling station — say a bomb threat would be called in — our ICE agents are more than just immigration customs enforcement; they’re also trained to have SRT, which means that we can have an emergency team respond quickly.”Mullin added that agents would not engage in “voter identification.”Todd Blanche, who is up for confirmation as attorney general, has also expressed support for deploying ICE agents to polling places.“Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?” Blanche asked during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March. “Illegals can’t vote.”The White House did not respond on the record to an inquiry about whether Trump or other White House officials have held discussions with Mullin, Blanche or other leaders about the possibility of deploying federal agents to voting sites during the midterm elections.During his July 17 press briefing, Mullin invoked “national security” as a component of election administration, moving the midterm elections into a realm in which courts have historically granted the...
White House Border Czar Tom Homan insisted Sunday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will keep conducting vehicle stops. The stops were briefly paused after agents were […]
Figures are source of dispute as US defense department days ago reduced record of troops killed and woundedThe Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action. Continue reading...
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) isn’t ruling out a vote to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if Democrats regain control of the House in November. […]
The U.S. military has paused its airstrikes on Iran after nearly two weeks of intensifying bombing, while diplomatic efforts have pushed forward to try to avert a return to all-out war.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to flatly rule out the possibility of Democrats moving to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement if his party retakes the House, but implied it's unlikely.
