ICE Is In Airports. Dem Secs of State Are Worried About the Midterms
Hello and welcome to The Franchise.
Buckle up: there is a lot to unpack this week.
We’ll examine the rumors — fanned by Trump-aligned figures — about the possibility that the president would order Immigration and Customs Enforcement to polling places this fall, updates on the DOGE voter-sharing deal saga (spoiler alert: we still don’t have many answers on that), Chip Roy admitting to the SAVE Act. in fact, I will an impact on women voters and, of course, updates on the never-ending redistricting battle that Trump launched nearly a year ago.
Let’s dig.
Will Trump send ICE to the polls?
Amid the Trump administration’s conflicting, generally confusing and downright evasive statements on the issue, Democratic secretaries of state are demanding that the administration explicitly state that it will bar ICE agents from polling places.
Heather Honey, a Department of Homeland Security official leading the department’s supposed election integrity efforts, reportedly said in a private call last month that ICE agents would not be present at polling locations.
“Any suggestion that ICE will be present at polling places is simply misinformation,” she said, according to an NPR report. “There will be no ICE presence at polling locations.”
But no one in the Trump administration has given such a direct answer to the question in a public forum. This month, DHS Secretary Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) recently confirmed that he could station ICE agents at polling places to respond to a “specific threat,” but not for the purpose of “intimidation.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons also gave similarly tepid answers on the issue when pressed publicly.
Meanwhile, Trump’s allies in the far-right fever swamps online are champing at the bit for Trump to send in ICE in November. In an episode of his podcast Monday, Steve Bannon, who has led the charge in this area, said ICE agents at airports could serve as a “test” for ICE activity at polling places.
“We can use this as a test, as a test case, to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm elections,” he said.
“They are trained to wait, to check identities,” he added. “That’s why it’s a perfect workout for fall 2026. That’s why it’s so brilliant – it’s another 5D chess move from President Trump.”
This has all become enough of a concern that Democratic secretaries of state are sounding the alarm about it. In a letter earlier this month, nine secretaries of state asked Mullin to simply confirm in writing that ICE agents not be deployed at polling places. (This seems like a very reasonable request!)
“As our states’ chief election officials, we ask that you 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 be present at voting and election administration locations during the 2026 elections,” the letter said.
“We have heard from many voters who are concerned about possible voter intimidation that could result from an armed law enforcement presence at voting locations,” the letter continued. “As such, we believe it is in the public interest for your office to clearly understand this policy. »
Not only would ICE agents at polling places be obviously intimidating to voters, but they another a way for the administration to perpetuate the myth that non-citizens vote in our elections. For the thousandth time, that’s not the case.
The Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, raised the conspiracy theory again this week when he refused to answer questions about whether the administration wanted to flood polling places with ICE agents and instead asked, “Are illegal aliens voting?”
Voting advocates sue over mysterious, very bad DOGE voter data deal
We have an update in the very bizarre story of how some members of Elon Musk’s DOGE staff apparently worked with an advocacy group in some sort of illegal voter data sharing pact.
First a quick reminder.
The Justice Department admitted in a court filing in January that in March 2025, two members of the DOGE team who worked at the Social Security Administration were in contact with an “advocacy group” (an election-denying organization, perhaps?) with the goal of finding “evidence of voter fraud and overturning election results in certain states.”
The DOJ never named the “advocacy group” in question, but noted that one of the workers signed a “voter data agreement” with the group.
On Monday, Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that focuses its work in part on voting rights, filed a lawsuit to force the Social Security Administration to release public records related to this apparent election data sharing pact.
“The SSA’s acknowledgments left many open questions about the conduct of DOGE affiliates within the SSA, how the agency discovered these inappropriate actions, and what other harm DOGE affiliates may have caused,” the lawsuit claims. “Concerns raised by the SSA’s incomplete disclosures raise urgent questions about inappropriate conduct within the agency that could affect the integrity of upcoming elections through the illegal disclosure of protected personal information to outside entities and other illegal political conduct by SSA employees.
“The Trump-Vance administration continues to hide what it is doing with Americans’ personal data, who it illegally shared it with, and why. Managing Americans’ personal data is one of our government’s most important obligations – and it is failing,” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement.
The Social Security Administration did not respond to TPM’s request for comment.
Chip Roy Admits SAVE America Act Would Harm Women
In a new audio recording leaked in February 2025, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who is the lead sponsor of the SAVE America Act in the House, admitted that the proposal would make it harder for married women, who have changed their last name, to vote.
As a reminder, the SAVE America Act is a sweeping voter suppression bill that passed the House and is currently in the Senate – with no clear path to passage, at least for now – that requires, among other things, documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. If the legislation becomes law, as Trump, his allies and many Republican lawmakers are calling for, it will disenfranchise millions of voters who lack documentary proof of citizenship. The proposal, as Roy himself has now admitted, will also impact married women who have changed their last name and do not have current photo ID.
In the recording, Roy acknowledged that some people have claimed the SAVE America Act would pose obstacles for married women, but those critics are just people trying to “stir things up,” he said.
“Although, frankly, I try not to raise the issue too much,” he said.
He then described the problems his chief of staff encountered when trying to obtain a new ID card in Virginia after Real ID requirements took effect.
“..she had to go through a bunch of hoops. She’s going to have to go back to the DMV twice because they want the paperwork,” Roy said. “That’s just part of the problem with how we try to implement the ability to identify people.”
These admissions about the difficulties of complying with new federal regulations on Real ID requirements for travel illustrate the exact concerns that voting rights advocates and Democrats have been raising for some time now in their opposition to the SAVE America Act. While requiring documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo IDs for voting may help weed out all the non-citizens who claim to risk their immigration status to vote (which only happens in the imaginations of Trump Republicans), it will also disenfranchise the many eligible voters who don’t have access to their citizenship documents or don’t have current IDs.
These remarks are also a rather stunning contradiction to subsequent statements Roy has made publicly that the SAVE Act will definitely not impact women. Let’s fast forward to April 2025, for example, when Roy issued the following statement, ignoring this (very real) concern.
“Perhaps the most absurd narrative peddled by the left, including by two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, is that the SAVE Act will somehow disenfranchise married women, or anyone else who has changed their name, from voting in federal elections,” Roy said.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. The SAVE Act secures the vote for all Americans by ensuring that non-citizens do not vote in federal elections, thereby nullifying the votes of citizens, including married women,” he added.
In the United States: the latest news on redistricting
Missouri
In a victory for Republicans on Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the state’s Republican-friendly congressional maps, ruling that there is no clause in the Missouri Constitution that explicitly prohibits the Legislature’s right to draw new congressional lines mid-decade.
Democrats are still trying to block the new maps by forcing a referendum on the issue.
In Other election news
Los Angeles Times: More than half a million ballots seized by leading GOP candidate in California governor’s race
AJC: Skeptics said the 2020 election boxes were missing. They never asked Fulton.
Arizona Mirror:DOJ subpoena reveals federal investigators sought virtually every document from Arizona’s 2020 audit
