Don’t Let ICE Freeze Voting
Guest article by Jay Inslee, former governor of Washington State
Of all the threats we face, the threat that Donald Trump will use ICE and Border {atrol agents to suppress the vote calls for a response by the Senate in the pending budget bill. By word and deed, Trump has shown an intent to do all he can to subvert a free and fair election this November. He must be stopped.
Who would bet $5 that Donald Trump, the man who staged an attempted coup and urged a Governor to “find” 11,000 votes, is not going to interfere with the ability of Americans to cast their votes this November? Who thinks that his “moral code,” the only thing that he says restricts him, will prevent him from using his massive ICE private army from suppressing the vote in Democratic precincts? Who thinks Steve Bannon is kidding when he says Trump will use federal agents to screen voters?
Donald Trump represents the largest threat to free and fair voting in American history since Jim Crow. He has demonstrated time and again, his willingness to subvert our democratic norms. His recent extortion note to Minnesota and his seizure of Georgia ballots are clarion calls for action to stop him from using ICE to suppress the vote.
Think about the private voter suppression army he has entirely at his disposal, an organization purportedly in existence to deal with immigration, but which could be used for Trump’s best survival tool, the suppression of votes in Democratic precincts in competitive districts and states.
Unless something changes, what we have seen in Minneapolis is just the harbinger to the use of ICE and the Border Patrol as a massive and strategically planned voter suppression campaign, surrounding polling places with intimidating federal agents.
By separating the Homeland Security budget from the rest, the dedicated Senate Democrats now have a chance to put roadblocks in Trump’s path.
Ask yourself this - why would Trump NOT surround polling places with camo-clad, face-masked, helmet-wearing, semi-automatic long gun carrying ICE and Border Patrol agents on election day, in every Democratic-leaning precinct in any targeted district? What would restrain him? His well-developed sense of propriety? His internal moral code? The spineless Republicans in the House and Senate that would have to threaten him with impeachment if he did this? Good luck finding those Profiles in Courage.
This would be devastating. He would not target all the precincts, just those with heavy Democratic performance. Given the fact that the Trump administration shoots protesters and then lies about them, the abject fear these troops would put in the minds of thousands of people who just want to vote cannot be measured, but is surely significant, particularly given the close margins in the House.
Trump has the logistical assets to make this reign of terror work. He doesn’t have to suppress the vote in the entire nation, just in competitive districts. He can easily do this. The average congressional district has 220 polling places. Let us say that he wants to target the 20% most Democratic precincts, or 44 precincts in each congressional district. Let us further project that he wants to attack the 50 most competitive districts. So he needs to cover 2,200 precincts to achieve his nefarious goal. This is easily done, since ICE alone has 20,000 employees. If he puts four agents on each of those precincts’ front doors, he only needs 8,800 agents, and he has about 3,000 just in Minneapolis.
This man has no limits. It is understandably hard to focus on this future problem amidst our current heartache and anger, but we need our courageous Senators to think of this in broader terms than just appropriations. When asked what he wanted national leaders to think about, a local Minneapolis council member said he wants them to realize our democracy itself is at stake, not just the need for peace in the current invasion of one great American city.
The potential loss of democracy outweighs any concern about temporary advantages or disadvantages. This November is the whole ball game. We must strengthen the legal wall of protection even if a current statute addresses this issue, for he will try and wiggle out of any existing restriction.
The Democrats in the Senate need to insist on provisions preventing this nuclear device from being dropped on the aspirations of a free America. Voters have a right to be free to cast their votes without walking past a phalanx of Trump’s private army. No appropriations bills should pass until we are confident that we will have free and fair elections this year.
But it may get even darker. Why would Trump not order his agents to insist that people show their birth certificates? What’s to stop them? Steve Bannon has said that is exactly the plan.
This is the last chance to stop this disaster. There will be no further vehicles where Democrats will have any leverage before this election. We should stop it with an amendment that prohibits use of funds for any ICE of Border Patrol actions within x yards of a polling place on election day or days. Or, given Trump’s unpredictable tendencies, it could simply prevent ICE activity on election day.
We cannot be blinded to this threat by our current anger at the current outrages. We have a responsibility to use our powers of imagination to foresee what this man is capable of. Who would have thought of invading Greenland? We must do this now, because there is no other chance to act.
Now is the right moment for this saving grace. The country is in a state of unbridled outrage. Republicans know this and some are trying to retreat. It may look hard now, but we must press. Trump’s efforts to cow Americans into submission is on the canvas. We should not give him a hand up. We should give him the handcuffs of policy to stop him from stealing an election.
The ballot box forms the central underpinning of our democracy. Amongst all the reforms needed, there can be no greater mission in the next two weeks than the preservation of democracy’s foundation. Let’s declare polling places ICE-free zones and beckon all eligible voters to vote.
Jay Inslee served from 2013 to 2025 as the 23rd governor of Washington State
If that were the case, why couldn’t blue states activate their own National Guard to protect polling places?. We already know that the National Guard can be activated by the state when there’s ice on the road.
I like the idea of restriction of all ICE and CBP activities on election day and 3 days before.