ICE watchers across the country who watched federal agents shoot people in the streets and fought to drive ICE from their cities are turning their new skills against the next authoritarian threat from the Trump administration: election interference.
asserted
agents → watch → administration
Volunteers who showed up a few months ago asking, “Where do I buy a whistle?” are now trained and committed members of an “ICE Watch” movement, said Zach Mueller, whose anti-authoritarian group States at the Core started hosting trainings earlier this year.
asserted
group → show → trainings
“They’re not in the normal cast of characters that have been showing up to rallies over the last several decades,” said Mueller.
asserted
Mueller → ’re → decades
Now, they’re planning to fan out to their local polling places and defend their neighbors’ rights to vote.
asserted
they → plan → rights
The ICE-watchers-turned-poll-watchers are preparing for the worst despite a temporary win the voting rights movement secured last week, when the Supreme Court upheld a decision to block a Trump administration rule that would have let the U.S. Postal Service refuse to deliver ballots from states that don’t share their voter rolls with the federal government, among other new constraints, which advocates warned would lead to chaos and uncounted votes.
asserted
advocates → turn → chaos
While that plan was foiled for the midterms, other electoral threats abound.
asserted
threats → foil → midterms
“There are 100 different scenarios that you can run through,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible.
asserted
Levin → be → Indivisible
“Could be ICE at the polls, could be Trump getting every Republican to swear to sabotage the results …
uncertain
Republican → get → results
Who knows?”
asserted
Who → know → ?
What is clear, Levin said, is, “If you think that some Democratic politician is going to have some neat trick in the back pocket that they going to pull when it happens, you’ve got another thing coming.”
asserted
thing → say → that
Despite lawsuits seeking to block federal immigration officers from poll sites, administration officials have continued to threaten their presence anyway.
asserted
officials → seek → presence
Earlier this month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that immigration agents could be deployed at polling places if there is a “threat” or if they’re serving a warrant.
uncertain
they → say → warrant
And President Donald Trump has previously said that federal agents and the National Guard could be sent to polling locations.
uncertain
agents → say → locations
Levin’s organization, which co-sponsors the No Kings protests, has launched “election protection” training programs to help people prepare to mobilize for different election sabotage scenarios, including federal immigration agents at the polls, and Mueller’s group has expanded its trainings to include election protection trainings known as “Beyond ICE Watch.”
asserted
group → co → Watch
“Ultimately this is going to come down to: Do you have a sufficient number of people organized and prepared to push back when shit hits the fan, or don’t you?” said Levin.
asserted
Levin → go → fan
In the past two years, Levin said, an elite class composed of “media and business and law firms and universities” and parts of the Democratic establishment, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have capitulated to the authoritarian whims of the Trump administration.
asserted
parts → say → administration
“The only thing that has changed anything over the last 22 months has been normal, everyday people deciding they weren’t going to put up with this shit,” said Levin.
asserted
Levin → change → shit
“They organized, they reached out, they formed communities, and they pushed back.”
asserted
they → organize → communities
Last year, the Save America Movement, a nonprofit political and pro-democracy organization that rose up in opposition to Trump, launched “liberty vans” in Los Angeles.
asserted
that → rise → Angeles
The vehicles are staffed with organizers trained in documenting and deescalating violence from federal law enforcement agents.
asserted
vehicles → staff → agents
“Our perspective was that if everybody in America knew what it felt like to be in Los Angeles during that summer, nobody would be OK with this,” said Mary Corcoran, who serves as the group’s executive director.
asserted
who → know → director
The project later expanded to other cities including Chicago, Charlotte, and Minneapolis.
asserted
project → expand → Chicago
Now, Corcoran plans to deploy a similar strategy in battleground states.
asserted
Corcoran → plan → states
The group is working with major civil and labor rights figures like Rev. Al Sharpton and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten to send volunteers — including trusted community leaders like clergy members — trained in deescalation, documentation, and local voting laws to precincts with large Black, Latino, and Asian populations in North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and Michigan.
asserted
group → work → Carolina
Corcoran said the precincts they chose are all electoral power centers with large minority and immigrant populations.
asserted
they → say → populations
“If they were successful in intimidating even 10 percent of those voters from coming back this midterm cycle, it could easily swing the outcome statewide,” she said.
uncertain
she → intimidate → outcome
Corcoran is hopeful that people knowing they will not be alone at the polls will help them feel safer, but she acknowledges that this election cycle will be a new test.
asserted
cycle → know → polls
“Voter intimidation has always been around,” she said.
asserted
she → say → ?
For the NAACP, voter intimidation is a familiar threat, even if the players have changed, explained Dominik Whitehead, the group’s head of membership.
asserted
Whitehead → change → membership
“Much of this we’ve seen before,” said Whitehead.
asserted
Whitehead → see → this
The NAACP is “going to defend democracy and ensure voters have access to the ballot box, as we have done for the last 117 years,” said Whitehead.
asserted
Whitehead → go → years
But like Corcoran, he acknowledges that these are “different times.”
asserted
these → acknowledge → Corcoran
ICE has “no jurisdiction” to prevent anyone from voting, something the NAACP has been including in their messaging to voters, he said.
asserted
he → have → voters
However, Whitehead said that they’re still anticipating the agency’s presence.
asserted
they → say → presence
He said the NAACP is “working closely with immigrant organizations” and focusing their election monitoring efforts in places like Michigan, Florida, and Texas, where they expect threats against Muslim, Latino, and Black Caribbean immigrant communities.
asserted
they → say → communities
Voting by mail has already begun in several key states, including Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
asserted
Voting → begin → Alabama
For Mueller and States at the Core, the real test will come after Election Day.
asserted
test → come → Day
“There is a real question mark in my mind about what is the reaction from the authoritarian movement to this election,” said Mueller.
asserted
Mueller → be → election
“And it’s worth thinking more about how folks are planning, not just for the lead-up version to this, but what happens on November 4th and afterwards.”
asserted
what → ’ → 4th
The Trump administration’s attacks on mail-in voting, for example, will likely become an issue again.
asserted
attacks → become → example
…and 37 more, not listed.
The Aporia
