Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons pushed back on suggestions from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and MAGA influencer Steve Bannon that his agents could be deployed to polling stations.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) asked Lyons about the possibility of ICE agents at voting places during a Thursday Homeland Security Committee hearing.
“You listen to what the president and his cabinet are saying, I have to ask about our 2026 elections,” the senator said. “The president says we should federalize our elections, even though the U.S. Constitution was written by our founders to give that power to the states so that we would never have a president who took too much power and tried to become a king.”
“So I have to ask Mr. Lyons, do you believe that ICE has the authority to be deployed to U.S. polling places around the country?” she wondered.
“So, ma’am, we’re civil, obviously we do civil enforcement and criminal law enforcement,” Lyons replied. “There’s no reason for us to deploy to a polling facility.”
“So if the president of the United States gets Kristi Noem on the phone and she gets you on the phone and she says, we’ve heard there’s a problem in Georgia or in Michigan or somewhere else. I need you to go and physically deploy around polling locations. You will say no,” Slotkin pressed.
“There’s no reason for us to deploy,” the acting director confirmed.
“I’m talking about something that I think would be extraordinary in American history, which is uniformed and massed ice agents encircling polling places,” the senator explained. “And it’s not fantasy, it’s not made up. These are things that the president and his cabinet have suggested. They’ve suggested invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow active duty military to do the very same thing.”
“So this isn’t, you know, someone who thinks the sky is falling,” she added. “The president and his cabinet are suggesting. So you’re going to be the guy standing in the breach.”
“There’s no reason for you to use ICE officers,” Lyons repeated.
“Great. Well, I hope that in the privacy of that meeting, when that comes down, and the president feels like he’s going to lose the midterm elections, that you don’t buckle,” Slotkin concluded.
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