Since 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies have been hinting that they might send federal forces to “protect” polling places—hints that have come more frequently as Trump’s approval ratings crater and the midterms draw closer.
In mid-May, Trump made a Mob-boss-like threat: “I would do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.” Similarly, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin vaguely told senators he would be willing to send ICE to the polls for a “specific threat.”
Of course, Trumpworld may be dropping these hints precisely to scare certain people away from voting. Any actual deployments—whether designed to intimidate voters or to seize ballots or equipment—would be patently illegal; when asked, a DHS official said that “ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations.” But this administration hasn’t bothered itself much with obeying the law or the Constitution. With all signs pointing to massive anti-GOP turnout, ICE or other agents from DHS might indeed be deployed to swing districts or to roam Black and brown neighborhoods. If that happens, what can cities, states, and communities do to protect their citizens and fair elections?
Don’t count on the police or National Guard to use force on undisciplined ICE agents. The US has an extraordinarily fragmented security landscape, with more than 18,000 agencies with overlapping jurisdictions—each with its own chain of command and culture. “Local law enforcement does not want to be in a shooting conflict with other law enforcement personnel, federal or not,” explains Tahir Duckett of Georgetown University’s Center for Innovations in Community Safety. Unless fired on unremittingly, police and the Guard would almost certainly not shoot back, former officers and experts told me. They want to go home, alive.
Such restraint was visible in Minneapolis during ICE’s Operation Metro Surge last winter, as more than 3,000 agents deployed to a city with only about 600 cops. As ICE went wilding, police did not attempt to confront or restrict its armed officers. Mayor Jacob Frey explained to me later that was partly because they were so outnumbered. Cops couldn’t be everywhere; it was impossible to arrive quickly when ICE agents broke into a home or tossed tear gas into a car. Given that imbalance, Frey did not ask police to arrest ICE agents. Nor would he have expected them to shoot. “Multiple jurisdictions literally fighting each other—what you’re talking about is the grave concern of civil war,” Frey said. “That’s not safe for anybody. That undermines the security of the very people we’re trying to protect.” If fired upon, Frey said, Minneapolis police would, as trained, fall back “regardless of who is shooting.”
De-escalation, not confrontation, also appears to have been the goal when Gov. Tim Walz deployed Minnesota’s National Guard after federal agents killed Alex Pretti on January 24. Many observers assumed Walz had ordered the Guard to protect Minneapolis residents. But the governor’s office, which did not respond to requests for comment, didn’t seem to have instructed the Guard to prevent ICE lawlessness or arrest its agents for illegal or unconstitutional behavior. Instead, it explained the Guard had been readied “out of an abundance of caution…to help keep the peace, ensure public safety, and allow for peaceful demonstrations.” Members wore high-visibility vests and handed out hot chocolate and doughnuts. “Protesters were asking [the Guard], ‘Why are you out here? What exactly are you here to do?’” notes Lindsay Cohn, a visiting professor at Columbia University and an expert in military–civilian relations. “The National Guard’s response was, ‘We’re just here to make sure everybody’s feeling good.’ That’s the most Minnesota thing!” But they also offered a model for military behavior contrasting with rampaging ICE officers—a “de-escalation tactic,” she says, “to make everyone feel like this is not the kind of situation where you need to fire weapons.”
Dispatching the Guard was risky, Cohn says. Had ICE attacked residents, the Guard had only bad options. Standing by would tarnish its reputation, but stepping in would be volatile. Cohn conjectures that Walz—a former Guard sergeant who presumably had excellent relationships with its commanders—gambled the Guard’s professional discipline would nudge ICE toward restraint, without a shot. After all, since the Civil War, Cohn says, “state and federal forces have never fired on each other in the US. One side always backs down.”
But here’s the rub: If no security force will actively confront ICE, who will?
Keep in mind what ICE has become. In 2025, Republicans in Congress gave the agency $75 billion on top of its roughly $10 billion annual budget; in June, they forced through another $70 billion to last until 2028. In less than a year, ICE has stockpiled military-grade materiel and more than doubled its ranks, including by hiring recruits rejected by other police and military forces.
With ICE, Trump has no need to invoke the Insurrection Act: He’s got his paramilitary, loyal to the White House over the Constitution. DHS shields its agents from investigation, even those who have executed protesters. That became clear when then–DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called both Pretti and Renée Good, another Minneapolis resident shot dead, “domestic terrorists.” The department initially refused to investigate the agents who killed them or to share any evidence with city or state officials. It’s no wonder that Democratic leaders and voting experts worry ICE will be sent to polls to either intimidate voters or to “secure” ballots, as the FBI did in January in Fulton County, Georgia.
An array of US pro-democracy forces—from institutional players to community advocates—is mustering ahead of Election Day, including the Brennan Center for Justice, 50501, the ACLU, the Advancement Project, All Voting is Local, the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, Democracy 2025, Democracy Docket, Democracy Forward, Indivisible, Interfaith Alliance, Protect Democracy, the League of Women Voters, Project HALO, Voting Rights Lab, and literally hundreds of others who are loosely but regularly in touch. Some groups are training people in election rights and nonviolent response, trying to prepare for what might happen, especially in blue areas of red or purple states.
There are “more people being trained in nonviolent direct collective action in the United States now than at any point in its history, including during the civil rights movement,” says Democracy Forward’s Skye Perryman. League of Women Voters chapters are partnering with “the garden club, the book club, the Elks Lodge, the Junior League,” says spokesperson Adam Ambrogi, building broad coalitions to show up and “demand normalcy” if DHS intimidation or anything else untoward happens at the polls.
Others are bolstering communication among election administrators, police forces, and civil society groups to quickly coordinate and respond to threats, including any from federal officials. That sounds boring, but it’s critical. Beau Tremitiere, a deputy director at Protect Democracy, notes that while Los Angeles–area residents organized heavily against ICE’s June 2025 surge there, state and local officials struggled to support that response. By contrast, Minneapolis’ successes in community resistance were sustained by clear city and state communication and coordination, developed after protests over George Floyd’s murder.
Democracy defenders have been practicing since 2020, when pro-Trump election deniers tried to halt ballot counts. Chris Thomas, after more than 30 years as Michigan’s state elections director, now works with Detroit voting officials. He says the city has coordinated closely with municipal police since that election, when the president’s supporters banged windows, chanting, “Stop the count.” Pro-democracy organizations and Democratic secretaries of state are also preparing legal briefs to immediately file suit against any unwelcome ICE interference. But even if pro-democracy forces win fast injunctions ordering ICE out, what if DHS ignores them and keeps coming?
Playwright Anton Chekhov famously said a gun in the first act must go off by the third. “Chekhov never thought about what happens if you had a whole dump truck of guns,” says Heather Hurlburt, a political violence expert, in reference to ICE’s massive buildup. “People who are determined to use force defeat the people who are determined not to,” she warns. “Lawless methods defeat lawful methods. These guys know that.”
That’s where local officials need to support everyday people willing to step up, as they did in Minneapolis. “You don’t need to be possessed of supernatural powers” to see a coming threat, says Corey Hill, a 50501 organizer in Orlando, Florida. His group’s volunteers will register voters and offer rides to the polls. But Hill is also keeping track of a subset who understand that protecting democracy may require a thousand people to show up in a targeted neighborhood or at a polling place or counting center and face an armed ICE surge.
That, after all, is what Pretti and thousands of ordinary Minneapolis residents did after ICE killed Good: Stand in the breach, no matter what, chanting, “You can’t shoot us all.”
