New York.- A coalition of nine organizations filed a lawsuit this Friday against the President Donald Trump administration to stop threats of armed agent intervention at polling stations for the midterm elections, which will take place in November.
The lawsuit, filed in a federal district court in the District of Columbia (Washington), includes the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of Justice and their respective directors.
With this legal action, the organizations seek to protect and strengthen the freedom to vote, “contributing to ensuring that all communities can fully participate in our democracy with confidence,” notes a joint statement from the groups.
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They also indicate that the lawsuit documents how the federal government has claimed authority for armed agents to operate in the vicinity of polling stations, “has dismantled internal agency safeguards against electoral interference, and has made unprecedented attempts to impose executive power over the administration of elections.”
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They assert that with those actions the result “is predictable”: voters across the country, especially African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, immigrants and naturalized citizens, as well as voters from families with mixed immigration status, will fear being questioned, arrested, surveilled, or subjected to the use of force.
The possibility of federal agents at polling stations
Although Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, has said that there will be no presence of agents at polling stations -which is prohibited by federal law- he did not rule them out either if it were necessary to execute an arrest warrant or if there were a threat against a polling place.
For his part, FBI Director Kash Patel also left open the possibility of sending federal agents during a Senate hearing this month to ensure “the integrity of the electoral process.”
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Those threats, they assert, undermine public trust and deter voters from exercising their right to vote, which is why they are asking the court to ban the use of law enforcement at or near polling stations.
The plaintiffs recalled that in the last year the federal government has also repeatedly “evaded or ignored” the law when carrying out arrests, investigations, and immigration control actions.
The legal action was filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Mi Familia en Acción, Asian Pacific American Advocates, the National Urban League, Minnesota 8, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
