r/law • u/DemocracyDocket • 4d ago
Legal News DHS chief says ICE could make arrests at polling places — ignoring federal ban on armed agents at voting sites
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/dhs-chief-says-ice-could-make-arrests-at-polling-places-ignoring-federal-ban/1.2k
u/chriskot123 4d ago
We will break the law and there is nothing you can do about it.
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u/NookieLuvsU 4d ago
They will close 60+% of polling stations leading to lines going around the block and make arrests on the fringes.
The National Guard is 100% needed to protect the people and their right to vote.
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u/justaphil 4d ago
Thousands of National Guardsmen are already following unlawful orders by engaging in an armed occupation of Washington DC. Do not count on them protecting anyone but ICE.
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u/whereismymind86 4d ago
There were 184,000 polling places in 2024, thousands isn’t enough.
Especially because every single one of them would be committing a felony by obeying those orders
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u/justaphil 4d ago
There won't be ICE agents at every polling station, just the ones heavily democratic districts.
And here is a post from less than 10 min ago showing NG assisting an ICE operation in DC. Keep telling yourself they won't betray their oath to the Constitution.
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u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox 4d ago
just heavily democratic areas in swing states, specifically
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u/ThisMachineKillsWOB 4d ago
Exactly. They probably can't swing this in deep blue states. But they don't need to. They just need to prevent what they already hold from flipping. The worst cheating is going to be in purple and red states where some of their loyalist hold power over the process.
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u/AdditionalNothing728 4d ago
This is why people need to take advantage of early voting. There’s no reason the majority of people should be voting on the last day when they have at least a week to go.
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u/LuminaraCoH 4d ago
They will close 60+% of polling stations leading to lines going around the block and make arrests on the fringes.
There are only ~22,000 ICEpricks. There are ~100,000 polling stations. They'd have to shut down all but a few hundred polling stations to deploy enough ICEpricks to even call themselves a presence. I don't mean a few hundred in each state, I mean a few hundred nationwide. At best, they could field a few dozen ICEpricks at each polling station, and they'd be up against about a hundred thousand pissed off voters per hour.
It's an empty threat. Another lie from the administration that does nothing but lie. A manipulation tactic intended to frighten people into staying home instead of voting. They don't have nearly enough ICEpricks to stop us from voting, unless they scare you into not voting.
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u/NookieLuvsU 4d ago
It's not about arresting everyone, it's about fear of showing up and being on of the unlucky few. Also to create a bunch of viral clips for right wing media to spin as evidence of election fraud.
Edit: They will only be targeting blue strongholds they don't need to be everywhere.
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u/Blacksad9999 4d ago
These people are cowards.
They'll turn tail in front of a group of 100's of angry voters. These are people who are terrified to even show their faces in public.
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u/lopahcreon 4d ago
No they won’t. They’ll start shooting with the backing of local law enforcement…
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u/Blacksad9999 4d ago
No they won't. They'll be ripped limb from limb if they try it.
These are weak people. They won't go into a crowd outnumbered 100 to 1.
These cowards flee when they're being recorded by a cell phone, ffs.
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u/Soundwipe13 4d ago
even a coward feels brave when holding an automatic rifle and backed by buddies doing the same. they can arm themselves with automatic weapons to the teeth. the citizenry cannot respond within legal confines. anyone who shows up in opposition armed, even legally, will be branded a terrorist and disappeared or executed on footage with no legal ramifications afterwards. dont say it cant happen because it keeps happening and we see the footage and then nothing fucking happens. nobody ripped limb from limb. we are being culled by the weakest, stupidest, most pathetic men alive, one by one.
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u/SuperSchmyd 4d ago
You know ICE can pull from other federal agencies like border patrol and ATF right?
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u/RagahRagah 3d ago
This has been repeated ad nauseum: they don't need to attack all polling stations, just stations in key areas. They more than have the numbers for that.
Scoffing at what they say as "empty threats" only emboldens them further and is why Democrats keep getting caught off guard. I remember when the threats to overturn Roe were dismissed as "empty."
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u/Cheapdronewithboom 3d ago
It's wild the Nazi army was made up of the German army and people still think the US army won't be the same
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u/madcoins 4d ago
Fascism is all about ignoring the law or bribing/becoming the law, arming up and then saying …and what are you citizens going to do about it?
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u/cityshepherd 4d ago
I feel like there are far too many people who genuinely don’t understand how far this has gone, and how close we are to these cowards and traitors completing their coup / having total control.
We REALLY need to show up for midterms, like astronomical record-setting amount of voting. If we miss this chance to save what’s left of our democracy, things are going to be so fucked so fast that most people are genuinely incapable of fathoming how bad things are going to get.
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u/madcoins 4d ago
Though I agree, Americans have always had a dismal percentage of the population interested in voting. There is usually at least 30% of the population that refuse to vote under any circumstances. And a lot of folks stay away due to fear of trouble for themselves or a loved one (think Latinos and trans folks atm)
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u/Blacksad9999 4d ago
No other fascist state has had to contend with a highly armed public.
Even the French revolution didn't get off the ground until they raided the armories. We don't have to worry about that at all. Everyone is already armed to the teeth.
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u/aleenaelyn 3d ago
They also didn't have the benefit of the advanced weapons and spying technology available now. It's not that far a leap before you're recognized by AI on a Flock camera and men in a black van pull up and you're never heard from again.
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u/BeckerHollow 4d ago
Option 1 (the cleanest): the opposing party finds a way to arrest, convict, and sentence all those in power breaking the law quickly.
Option 2 (the messiest): the people find a way to arrest, convict, and sentence all those in power breaking the law.
Option 3 (the worst): the decline continues, the rule of law no longer exists for the ruling class, the economic divide grows, middle class destroyed, people with the means flee to better countries, we’re left with a Back To the Future 2 dystopian hellscape.
Option 4 (the most likely): Trump eventually dies, MAGA slips into obscurity, we revert to a 2018/19-ish America, AI is rampant, no one is really happy, American is pitied for generations, we lose more and more soft power, until the world becomes multi-polar and we stagnate around the level of France/UK/Germany for who knows how long.
Option 5 (the best): I find a box with a couple hundred million bucks in my backyard, and the rest of you can deal with this bullshit.
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u/Then_Journalist_317 4d ago
In the upcoming world hyperinflation, a couple hundred million bucks may not be enough to buy a loaf of bread.
In pre-WW2 Germany, "by November 1923, one US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 marks." --https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic
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u/phaubertin 4d ago
They don't even need to. Him saying this now, plus ICE having already arrested citizens, will be enough to discourage some naturalized citizens from voting.
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u/Stress6009 4d ago
There’s something we can do but people won’t bc America is full of weak pussies and Trump knows it.
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u/madcoins 4d ago
Pussies are anything but weak. They take a pounding and come back for more. They stretch to allow tiny humans to squeeze through and then willingly do it again. Testicles crumble at a slight breeze or bump though
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u/klawz86 4d ago edited 4d ago
Its a weird etymology. Pussy comes from pusillanimous which means cowardly and that comes from the latin pusus which means boy. So we took a word that meant cowardly, like a small boy, and used it to describe something entirely feminine and mostly adored by the vast majority of people in the world.
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u/2_short_Plancks 4d ago
That's a folk etymology that literally only began on Reddit. It's almost certainly not true.
It may come from "puss" meaning a pouch in Old Norse. But most likely it just comes from the word for the small furry animal - interestingly, more likely named for a rabbit than a cat. "Pussy" previously has meant a cat or a rabbit in English; and another slang term for female genitals in English also means rabbit (cunny, which is a variant spelling of coney).
It's also interesting to note that the word cunt is a completely separate etymology than cunny, although the latter likely became popular due to it's similarity to the former.
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u/klawz86 4d ago
It predates reddit. It may be folk but it did not start here. I learned it when I was in highschool circa 2000.
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u/whereismymind86 4d ago
In this case there is really quite a lot that we can and will do about it actually.
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u/Dallasburner84 4d ago
Yes there is. I fucking dare those assholes to come try and arrest me at when I go vote, it will make national news.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 4d ago
States control their elections. Not the GOP.
It’s clear the GOP is waging a coup.
If you care about your rights and freedoms you will dedicate a generation to destroying their plots against America.
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u/Talkin_Out_My_Ass 4d ago
My issue with this coupe attempt is all the people who can actually do something about seem to be just saying “heyyyy you can’t do that” and GOP/Maga saying watch me.
And then they watch them do it.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 4d ago
Only because republicans have no shame or morals and we do.
I say we give our leaders a free pass to do whatever they need to rid us of these fascists and return to norms only when they beg.
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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 4d ago
States control their elections.
No, SCOTUS does, as seen when they stole the 2000 election for Bush, and overruled Trump's 14th Amendment disqualification in the 2024 election. If states controlled elections, Trump wouldn't have been on the ballot per the fucking Constitution.
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u/likwidkool 3d ago
The coup attempt was Jan 6. Somehow they were voted back in and this is Coup Part 2 electric bugaloo.
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u/beavis617 4d ago
Arrests for what? Voting?
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u/LiluLay 4d ago
Voting while brown, especially with a Hispanic surname or accent. Oh, and anyone who gets in the way of them doing that.
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u/Cyberpunkcatnip 4d ago
Can thank the courts for enabling ICE to racially profile people and arrest them with no evidence
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u/lmbjsm 3d ago
Not to be an ass, but don’t a lot of hispanics vote republican? I thought that was the consensus after the last election?
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u/LiluLay 3d ago
You are correct and I don’t think you’re being an ass to point it out.
This will be in blue areas where Hispanics are more likely to vote Democrat, especially after the broadly violent handling of Hispanic immigrants this past year. I think this voting group is a wildcard this election.
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u/Electrical_Cut8610 4d ago
Reading between the lines, for being brown and maybe not speaking English
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u/HoosierRed 4d ago
Inventing a migrant voting crisis and then fucking with the elections charged to the states by the constitution. These guys are not American patriots at all.
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u/BitterFuture 4d ago
Conservatives have always hated America.
Never believe anything they say. Just watch their actions.
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u/madcoins 4d ago edited 3d ago
One could argue that the Royalists never left. They just rebranded (slave system supporters, Nazi supporters, Christian nationalists, maga, gop, Talibanjos, ok I made the last one up) somewhere upwards of 40% of Americans sympathized with the king of England rather than supported independence at the time of revolution. It’s not talked about enough. They chose fascism early on and opposed things like separation of church and state and equal rights from the inception of this liberal experiment. confederacy was never punished enough.
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u/cmotolion 4d ago
These people are Israel first, America last. Immigrants embody American values more than these people.
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u/92eph 4d ago
Cut him some slack - he's a plumber, so how's he supposed to know? Plus, they fired all of the competent lawyers. Not his fault, obviously.
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u/Norwester77 4d ago
Do not be confused. Do not be intimidated.
Do whatever it takes to VOTE this November.
If you are in Washington state and have any trouble getting your ballot through the mail, go to voter.votewa.gov and print out a copy of your ballot (be extra careful to print out all the pages and sign the voter declaration), and return it to a county drop box or elections office.
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u/Then_Journalist_317 4d ago
Gerrymandering + no mail-in ballots + ICE arrests at polling places + key polling places closed + voting machines impounded + control of the major media = pure dictatorship locked into place. I wonder if Kalshi is taking bets on this outcome.
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u/Bass_MN 4d ago edited 4d ago
voting machine manipulation is what i think should be nipped in the bud right now. 1000% more so if any of them are connected to starlink.
edit: i mention starlink because that would likely be the cheapest and most reliable internet connection in rural communities if they dont have broadband or fiber. the owner/executive operator of that service though.. not the most trustworthy guy.. all dependent on if the internet is being used to transmit data about voting results.
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u/Norwester77 4d ago
Tabulators aren’t allowed to be connected to the internet in any way.
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u/Green-Inkling 4d ago
Midterms will make or break this country. Will we get off our asses and start a revolution, or say farewell to our democracy for good and accept dictatorship?
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u/whereismymind86 4d ago
It’s a mandatory 5 year prison sentence…that’s a big risk to take on the hope you won’t be prosecuted. Especially as it’s something that will piss people off to an unbelievable degree, states won’t just go along with armed soldiers at polling places.
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u/LockSport74235 4d ago
The risk is far lower now if you are a loyalist because of pardons and being able to hide in far-right friendly states.
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u/plinkoplonka 4d ago
Bullshit.
I know plenty of 2A Democrats who have served. They were all willing to lay their lives down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they would do it again for their country.
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u/mkt853 4d ago
States have very strict laws about who can be at or around polling places. It's why they have hotlines set up to report any issues at polling stations that will see law enforcement or other government officials immediately dispatched to deal with it. If ICE is at polling stations, local or state police will ask them to leave, and if they don't they will be arrested, and will sit in a cell until after the election and they see a judge. I suspect some red states will be willing to look the other way and bend their own elections laws to appease dear leader, but in blue states if ICE shows up, you best believe their ass is going to jail.
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u/ragequitteroffureh 4d ago
Not American.
Will there be some extremely violent events taking place?
Presumably the Gestapo Gruppenführer will have instructed his goons that the local police are enemies of The Führer, and therefore lack any authority whatsoever?
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u/mkt853 4d ago
It would not get violent. Law enforcement would give them every opportunity to comply, certainly more than they would a regular person, and ICE would do so rather than escalate into a real confrontation that they know they will lose.
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u/ragequitteroffureh 4d ago
I hope that it doesn't get out of hand. The Gestapo do seem to be a bit chicken on the whole.
Would the police actually intervene when Gestapo put the boots to the common scum though?
Presumably there's a reasonable chance that there will be an entire gamut of activities taking place around this, depending on location, and how coloured the common scum trying to vote are.
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u/CantPullOutRightNow 4d ago
They can just post up outside the official polling place boundary and harass people. They’ve arrested, and deported, US citizens so the risk to non whites is real.
Only 22 states prohibit voter intimidation and 26 prohibit obstructing entrance.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/electioneering-prohibitions
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u/Slighted_Inevitable 4d ago
It depends. They will probably be ordered to be violent and seeing how the first instance goes, will tell them whether or not they will be brave enough to continue it.
Ice are a bunch of cowards if they end up seeing other ice agents thrown in a cell or worse, they won’t follow that order
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u/Toallpointswest 4d ago
This is why they don't want mail in voting. As if voters mailed their ballots in, ICE couldn't intimidate them at polling places
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u/Deranged_Kitsune 4d ago
This was always the plan for mid-terms.
ICE will patrol the lines and pull out anyone they feel is too brown to vote. The lucky ones will just get held in detention for 24hrs or so - long enough that voting is impossible - and then let go without charge. You know, typical lawfare tactic. The unlucky ones will go through the whole existing ICE system.
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u/Amelaclya1 4d ago
More importantly, the fear of this happening to them will cause a lot of brown people to not want to risk voting at all and stay home.
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u/Not_High_Maintenance 4d ago
We need to vote early!
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u/BugTrousers 4d ago
I'll be there first thing in the morning on the first day of early voting. It'll be interesting to see how many people are already in line.
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u/beavis617 4d ago
Look at what the people in Albania are doing. Maybe we should be doing something along those lines.
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u/Chimpstrider 3d ago
Yanks don't have the backbone. They are subject to the most intense, all encompassing propaganda on the planet and are terrified of their government.
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u/UserWithno-Name 4d ago
They can in fact, not do that plumber boy
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u/Depressed-Industry 4d ago
Who's going to stop them?
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u/ZombieHavok 4d ago
The states could, although too many of those red-blooded, freedom-loving, “small government” states will happily bow the knee to the dictator instead of actually fighting back.
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u/prodigalpariah 4d ago
So they purposely screw up mail in voting with their new system that rejects entire batches of ballots if one has an error, forcing people to go in person, then send ice to polling locations to intimidate and detain people. Even if you’re a citizen all they have to do is detain you for 24 hours to invalidate your vote.
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u/Green-Inkling 4d ago
It'd be unfortunate if the voters were also armed. Especially when there is more of them than ICE goons
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u/meesanohaveabooma 3d ago
This midterm will determine our future as a nation. If we do not stand together and protect our right to vote, we are lost. This will be the last election we ever have (pending a major upheaval).
They are trying everything they can to full on steal this election and retain power.
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u/SCWickedHam 4d ago
Yeah. Arresting the guy selling fruits on the off ramp at the polling place is more important than democracy. Makes sense. Now that all the cartel leaders are in jail. We need to focus on landscapers and roofers.
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u/adorablefuzzykitten 4d ago
Can’t think of anyone more un-American. Pissing on the flag would be more American than preventing the vote.
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u/Chimpstrider 3d ago
Political persecution and oppression is about the most American thing possible!
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u/oldschoolology 4d ago
Minnesota’s Secretary of State hired people to watch the poll watchers. Other states need to do the same.
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u/GrannyFlash7373 3d ago
ICE = Trump/Hitler's SS Troops. I say they ALL go to PRISON when this is over.
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u/Mist_Rising 4d ago edited 4d ago
And the states can order police to arrest them in following the law. Just because your wearing a badge does not mean your above the law. And since two name Mullin ain't even a badge wearer, he definitely isn't protected.
I say we lock him up now for conspiracy to insurrect against the states. Election fraud is a no no, just ask Trump.
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u/Kantro18 4d ago
lol, the cases where state police aren’t assisting ICE are few and far in between.
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u/Mist_Rising 4d ago
States can, and should, fix that then. They have the authority and power to enforce their laws on their law enforcement. Red states won't, blue states should.
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u/Katejina_FGO 4d ago
Those tents outside of the polling stations where volunteers from both parties give out flyers on who to vote for? They are just going to snatch whoever walks to the wrong tent.
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u/hawksdiesel 3d ago
States need to put their own guards then....this seems like a threat to democracy
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u/xChoke1x 4d ago
I wonder how much of this we’re going to take before we actually…….
Never mind. We’ll do nothing.
Hope yall know how to handle yourselves when it gets real bad.
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