Trump Won't Rule Out ICE at Polls as L.A. County Mails Ballots

The president said he could invoke the Insurrection Act, though legal experts say it can't override constitutional limits at the polls.

President Donald Trump wouldn't rule out sending immigration agents to polling places in the midterms, in a Time magazine interview the Guardian reported on Thursday.

Los Angeles County began mailing ballots on Thursday. The midterms are just over a month away.

Asked about ICE at the polls, Trump answered, "Haven't thought of it." He then said he could invoke the Insurrection Act to declare a national emergency, adding, "A lot of people think I should use it sometimes."

That law lets a president put troops on the ground inside the country. Legal experts say it doesn't outrank the Constitution, which bars troops from interfering in elections or appearing at polling sites, the outlet reported.

The idea isn't new inside the administration. In September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE officers could be sent to polling sites around the country to deal with specific threats.

"The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we're serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down," Mullin said.

Armed immigration agents already have a grim reference point. Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was shot and killed in her car by an immigration agent on Jan. 7, during a federal immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security called what she did an act of domestic terrorism. Video of the encounter shows her steering away from the agent as she tried to leave, the Guardian reported.

On Thursday, her partner and her brother filed two federal lawsuits. They allege wrongful death and a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights. The suits name the agent and senior officials, among them former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. Neither suit has been decided.

The agency has grown fast under Trump's second term. More than 65,000 people were in immigration detention in July 2026, up from about 40,000 when Joe Biden left office.

On the same Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the administration can keep immigrants locked up without bond hearings while they fight deportation. Several appeals court judges had ruled the policy violates federal law, while two other circuits upheld mandatory detention.

The NAACP had already sued over federal officers at polling places by Sept. 18.

Trump spent Thursday campaigning in Texas and Oklahoma, two Republican strongholds, and told Time that candidates he campaigns for would win.

Mullin's own description of ICE's role was short. "If we're serving a warrant," he said, "we will be where we need to be."

Source: theguardian.com, retrieved October 1, 2026.