State election chiefs demand Trump’s DHS pick ban ICE agents from polls

Amid a host of conflicting statements from the Trump administration, state election chiefs have asked Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to confirm that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents won’t be sent to the polls should he become the next head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mullin said during a March 18 confirmation hearing for his nomination, that he wouldn’t rule out sending ICE agents to the polls during midterms. 

But that was at odds with what federal election officials told state election administrators just weeks ago.

During a February 25 FBI phone briefing, DHS senior “election integrity” official Heather Honey told state election officials on the call, “Any suggestion that ICE is going to be present at polling places is simply disinformation. There will be no ICE presence at polling locations.”

A group of Democratic secretaries of state sent a March 9 letter to Mullin asking that he honor Honey’s statement on this policy. 

“As our states’ Chief Election Officials, we ask you to confirm in writing that it is or will be the policy of the Department of Homeland Security that ICE and other immigration enforcement personnel will not have a presence at voting and election administration locations during the 2026 elections,” reads the letter. “We have heard concerns from many of our constituents about potential voter intimidation that would arise from an armed law enforcement presence at polling locations.”

The state election chiefs have requested that Mullin respond to the letter by April 8. His office did not immediately respond to Democracy Docket’s questions about any response to the letter. 

Despite the pledge from Honey – who’s otherwise been no friend of free and fair elections – other statements from federal officials, such as outgoing DHS Chief Kristi Noem and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, suggest the Trump administration hasn’t ruled out ICE agent deployment during elections.

It’s one of many issues that state voting officials have expressed anxiety over given a chain of statements and events suggesting that the Trump administration may try to usurp their constitutionally protected elections authority: The January FBI raid and seizure of voting records in Fulton County, Georgia; an FBI probe of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 election results; Trump’s aggressive promotion of the voter suppression-loaded SAVE America Act; and a litany of unproven allegations of massive voter fraud from noncitizens. 

“Trump and his administration have used ICE to terrorize and intimidate Americans,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, the Mullin letter’s lead signatory, in a press statement. “Immigration officials must not be used to intimidate voters.” 

“That we even have to ask for written assurances that the federal government won’t deploy armed agents to the polls is a sad and frightening sign of the times we’re in,” said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who also signed the letter alongside Griswold and seven other state election chiefs.

Bellows was among the group of election chiefs briefed by FBI and DHS officials in February, during which the state secretaries unsuccessfully sought assurances from the Trump administration that it would uphold their authority over elections.

“I did not walk away from this meeting reassured that the federal government wouldn’t try to interfere in state sovereignty over the election,” Bellows told Democracy Docket.

There are also concerns that the Trump administration might deploy armed troops to polling sites, possibly in a logistical support capacity for federal agents. 

Asked about this during a Senate hearing last week, U.S. Air Force General Gregory M. Guillot said he “would not see any reason to use armed and uniformed members around a polling place for logistics,” and that he didn’t “think they should be anywhere near” polling sites.