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Since 2020,<\/span> President Donald Trump and his allies have been hinting that they might send federal forces to \u201cprotect\u201d polling places\u2014hints that have come more frequently as Trump\u2019s approval ratings crater<\/a> and the midterms draw closer.<\/p>\n In mid-May, Trump made a Mob-boss-like threat<\/a>: \u201cI would do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.\u201d Similarly, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin vaguely told senators<\/a> he would be willing to send ICE to the polls for a \u201cspecific threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, Trumpworld may be dropping these hints precisely to scare certain people away from voting. Any actual deployments\u2014whether designed to intimidate voters or to seize ballots or equipment\u2014would be patently illegal; when asked, a DHS official said that \u201cICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations.\u201d But this administration hasn\u2019t bothered itself much with obeying the law or the Constitution. With all signs pointing to massive anti-\u00adGOP turnout, ICE or other agents from DHS might indeed be deployed to swing districts or to roam Black and brown neighborhoods. If that happens, what can cities, states, and communities do to protect their citizens and fair elections?<\/p>\n Don\u2019t count on the police or National Guard to use force on undisciplined ICE agents. The US has an extraordinarily fragmented security landscape, with more than 18,000 agencies with overlapping jurisdictions\u2014each with its own chain of command and culture. \u201cLocal law enforcement does not want to be in a shooting conflict with other law enforcement personnel, federal or not,\u201d explains Tahir Duckett of Georgetown University\u2019s Center for Innovations in Community Safety<\/a>. Unless fired on unremittingly, police and the Guard would almost certainly not shoot back, former officers and experts told me. They want to go home, alive.<\/p>\n Such restraint was visible in Minneapolis during ICE\u2019s Operation Metro Surge<\/a> last winter, as more than 3,000 agents deployed to a city with only about 600 cops. As ICE went wilding, police did not attempt to confront or restrict its armed officers. Mayor Jacob Frey explained to me later that was partly because they were so outnumbered. Cops couldn\u2019t be everywhere; it was impossible to arrive quickly when ICE agents broke into a home or tossed tear gas into a car. Given that imbalance, Frey did not ask police to arrest ICE agents. Nor would he have expected them to shoot. \u201cMultiple jurisdictions literally fighting each other\u2014what you\u2019re talking about is the grave concern of civil war,\u201d Frey said. \u201cThat\u2019s not safe for anybody. That undermines the security of the very people we\u2019re trying to protect.\u201d If fired upon, Frey said, Minneapolis police would, as trained, fall back \u201cregardless of who is shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n De-escalation, not confrontation, also appears to have been the goal when Gov. Tim Walz deployed Minnesota\u2019s National Guard <\/a>after federal agents killed Alex Pretti on January 24<\/a>. Many observers assumed Walz had ordered the Guard to protect Minneapolis residents. But the governor\u2019s office, which did not respond to requests for comment, didn\u2019t seem to have instructed the Guard to prevent ICE lawlessness or arrest its agents for illegal or unconstitutional behavior. Instead, it explained the Guard had been readied \u201cout of an abundance of caution\u2026to help keep the peace, ensure public safety, and allow for peaceful demonstrations.\u201d Members wore high-visibility vests and handed out hot chocolate and doughnuts. \u201cProtesters were asking [the Guard], \u2018Why are you out here? What exactly are you here to do?\u2019\u201d notes Lindsay Cohn, a visiting professor at Columbia University and an expert in military\u2013\u00adcivilian relations. \u201cThe National Guard\u2019s response was, \u2018We\u2019re just here to make sure everybody\u2019s feeling good.\u2019 That\u2019s the most Minnesota thing!\u201d But they also offered a model for military behavior contrasting with rampaging ICE officers\u2014a \u201cde-escalation tactic,\u201d she says, \u201cto make everyone feel like this is not the kind of situation where you need to fire weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n Dispatching the Guard was risky, Cohn says. Had ICE attacked residents, the Guard had only bad options. Standing by would tarnish its reputation, but stepping in would be volatile. Cohn conjectures that Walz\u2014a former Guard sergeant who presumably had excellent relationships with its commanders\u2014gambled the Guard\u2019s professional discipline would nudge ICE toward restraint, without a shot. After all, since the Civil War, Cohn says, \u201cstate and federal forces have never fired on each other in the US. One side always backs down.\u201d<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the rub: If no security force will actively confront ICE, who will?<\/p>\n Keep in mind what ICE has become. In 2025, Republicans in Congress gave the agency $75 billion<\/a> on top of its roughly $10 billion annual budget; in June, they forced through another $70 billion<\/a> to last until 2028. In less than a year, ICE has stockpiled military-grade materiel and more than doubled its ranks, including by hiring recruits rejected by other police and military forces.<\/p>\n With ICE, Trump has no need to invoke the Insurrection Act: He\u2019s got his paramilitary, loyal to the White House over the Constitution. DHS shields its agents from investigation, even those who have executed protesters. That became clear when then\u2013DHS Secretary Kristi Noem<\/a> called both Pretti and Ren\u00e9e Good, another Minneapolis resident shot dead, \u201cdomestic terrorists.\u201d The department initially refused to investigate<\/a> the agents who killed them or to share any evidence with city or state officials. It\u2019s no wonder that Democratic leaders and voting experts worry ICE will be sent to polls to either intimidate voters or to \u201csecure\u201d ballots, as the FBI did in January<\/a> in Fulton County, Georgia.<\/p>\n An array of US pro-democracy forces\u2014from institutional players to community advocates\u2014is mustering ahead of Election Day, including the Brennan Center for Justice, 50501, the ACLU, the Advancement Project, All Voting is Local, the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, Democracy 2025, Democracy Docket, Democracy Forward, Indivisible, Interfaith Alliance, Protect Democracy, the League of Women Voters, Project HALO, Voting Rights Lab, and literally hundreds of others who are loosely but regularly in touch. Some groups are training people in election rights and nonviolent response, trying to prepare for what might happen, especially in blue areas of red or purple states.<\/p>\n There are \u201cmore people being trained in nonviolent direct collective action in the United States now than at any point in its history, including<\/em> during the civil rights movement,\u201d says Democracy Forward\u2019s Skye Perryman. League of Women Voters chapters are partnering with \u201cthe garden club, the book club, the Elks Lodge, the Junior League,\u201d says spokesperson Adam Ambrogi, building broad coalitions to show up and \u201cdemand normalcy\u201d if DHS intimidation or anything else untoward happens at the polls.<\/p>\n Others are bolstering communication among election administrators, police forces, and civil society groups to quickly coordinate and respond to threats, including any from federal officials. That sounds boring, but it\u2019s critical. Beau Tremitiere, a deputy director at Protect Democracy, notes that while Los Angeles\u2013area residents organized heavily against ICE\u2019s June 2025 surge there<\/a>, state and local officials struggled to support that response. By contrast, Minneapolis\u2019 successes in community resistance were sustained by clear city and state communication and coordination, developed after protests over George Floyd\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n Democracy defenders have been practicing since 2020, when pro-Trump election deniers tried to halt ballot counts. Chris Thomas, after more than 30 years as Michigan\u2019s state elections director, now works with Detroit voting officials<\/a>. He says the city has coordinated closely with municipal police since that election, when the president\u2019s supporters banged windows, chanting, \u201cStop the count.\u201d Pro-\u00addemocracy organizations and Democratic secretaries of state are also preparing legal briefs to immediately file suit against any unwelcome ICE interference. But even if pro-democracy forces win fast injunctions ordering ICE out, what if DHS ignores them and keeps coming?<\/p>\n Playwright Anton Chekhov famously said a gun in the first act must go off by the third. \u201cChekhov never thought about what happens if you had a whole dump truck of guns,\u201d says Heather Hurlburt, a political violence expert, in reference to ICE\u2019s massive buildup. \u201cPeople who are determined to use force defeat the people who are determined not to,\u201d she warns. \u201cLawless methods defeat lawful methods. These guys know that.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s where local officials need to support everyday people willing to step up, as they did in Minneapolis. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to be possessed of supernatural powers\u201d to see a coming threat, says Corey Hill, a 50501 organizer in Orlando, Florida. His group\u2019s volunteers will register voters and offer rides to the polls. But Hill is also keeping track of a subset who understand that protecting democracy may require a thousand people to show up in a targeted neighborhood or at a polling place or counting center and face an armed ICE surge.<\/p>\n That, after all, is what Pretti and thousands of ordinary Minneapolis residents did after ICE killed Good: Stand in the breach, no matter what, chanting, \u201cYou can\u2019t shoot us all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n