By Ryan Knappenberger | Courthouse News Service
The city of Denver sued the Trump administration on Thursday, asking a federal judge to issue an injunction that would bar armed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from approaching polling sites during the midterm elections.
The city, joined by civil rights groups Common Cause, UnidosUS and the League of United Latin American Citizens, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and argues such a move would violate a Civil War-era statute specifically criminalizing the stationing of troops at voting locations.
“The specter of armed officers at polling places threatens the freedom of this upcoming election,” the coalition said. “It places voters in fear that they will be confronted by armed federal immigration enforcement officers if they choose to cast a ballot.”
The coalition points to 18 U.S. Code Section 592, which Congress passed in 1865 before the end of the Civil War over concerns that the president could try to influence federal elections.
The statute provides a narrow exception only if a hostile foreign power is targeting specific polling sites; it authorizes troops to defend against the attack, not engage in law enforcement activities.
In 1909, Congress removed an additional exception for “keeping peace at the polls” to prevent federal authorities from using any sort of disturbance as a pretext to deploy troops.
“Congress banned armed federal agents at elections sites to provide and preserve free and fair elections, the rule of law, the right to vote and Americans’ confidence in the sanctity of the ballot box,” the coalition said. “Defendants’ disregard for that statutory framework threatens our upcoming election.”
Thursday’s lawsuit is the first of its kind and comes amid growing tensions over midterm elections, with early voting set to begin later this month.
Efforts to block the Trump administration’s proposed changes to mail-in voting have thus far failed since there is no official policy to challenge — which will likely become a point of contention in Denver’s lawsuit.
On Sept. 1, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin suggested ICE agents would be authorized to enter polling places in certain scenarios and slammed statements by Democrats that agents would be patrolling the sites as fearmongering.
“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,” Mullin said.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed the integrity of the elections is threatened by widespread noncitizen voting. He used the claims to justify his efforts to exert unprecedented federal influence over the elections.
In April, Trump signed the executive order “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” which would create lists of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and instructs the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to verified voters.
While several Democratic states sued to block the Postal Service’s ultimate policy, the Supreme Court on Aug. 24 rejected the suit, finding its claimed injury was hypothetical without an official policy. The USPS posted its final rule on Aug. 27.
According to the coalition, the Trump administration has been developing and implementing the “Polling Place Policy” since March 2026, with the first official indication of a policy coming from then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche: At the Conservative Political Action Conference, he asked why there was any objection to sending ICE officers to polls.
Soon after, the Justice Department removed a long-standing and publicly available manual stating that federal agents are specifically barred from patrolling polling sites under the Civil War-era statute.
The coalition highlighted incidents over the summer in San Antonio, Texas, Ventura County, California, and Syracuse, New York, where ICE agents entered active polling places to conduct certain law enforcement activity as clear evidence there is a policy in place.
They are specifically requesting a federal judge issue an injunction to block the “Polling Place Policy,” declare the feds have no authority to order armed officers to a polling site and enjoin federal officers from operating or carrying weapons near any ballot dropbox, curbside voting location or other voting site.
“Judicial review of the Polling Place Policy is appropriate now to declare that, except as narrowly defined by law under 18 U.S. Code Section 592, the federal government may not send armed officers to polling sites, as that would violate the prohibition on federal ‘armed men’ at election sites and interfere with the conduct of a free and fair election,” the coalition wrote. “Defendants should not be permitted to cast the pall of federal force over the ballot box as we head to the polls in the coming days.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
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