A senior Department of Homeland Security official told voting officials across the country this week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will not be present at polling places during the midterm elections.
"Any suggestion that ICE is going to be present at polling places is simply disinformation," said Heather Honey, DHS assistant secretary for election integrity, during a Wednesday call with state election officials. "There will be no ICE presence at polling locations."
The commitment addresses weeks of anxiety among election administrators from both parties, who have been preparing for potential federal interference after months of mixed signals from the Trump administration.
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Federal law explicitly prohibits federal troops or law enforcement from interfering with voting—states have constitutional authority to run their own elections. Yet President Trump has repeatedly suggested openness to unprecedented federal involvement in election processes. He's continued to push false claims about noncitizen voter fraud, including during Tuesday's State of the Union address. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said on his podcast earlier this month: "We're going to have ICE surround the polls come November."
When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about those comments, she said she "can't guarantee" that an ICE agent wouldn't be near a polling location.
That uncertainty created real concern. Voting officials from California to Kentucky reached out to federal agencies asking for clarity. California's Secretary of State Shirley Weber asked Honey directly whether states would receive advance notice if ICE agents were deployed to polling places—a question that itself signals how unusual this conversation has become.
The promise from Honey carries particular weight because she comes from the election denial movement that emerged after 2020. Before her current DHS role, she worked with Trump's former attorney Cleta Mitchell to spread misinformation about voting system reliability. Her public commitment to keeping polling places free of ICE agents suggests at least some officials within the administration are drawing a line.
Election officials will likely be watching closely in the coming weeks to see whether this commitment holds as election day approaches.
