Newsom warns of ICE at the polls as California begins in-person voting

from Maya S. MillerCalMatters

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As in-person voting begins in California’s special redistricting election, Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly said the Trump administration could send immigration agents to the polls in an effort to intimidate voters and reduce turnout.

The governor’s warnings, while not specific, speak to what community leaders say are real, palpable fears in some Latino communities that immigration agents could show up on Election Day. And since the Supreme Court sanctified the use racial profiling in immigration stopseven US citizens fear that they could be detained just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“You will likely see members of our military in and around polling stations and polling places across the country,” Newsom warned last week during a virtual event with former President Barack Obama in support of Proposition 50. “I would say the same thing about ICE and the Border Patrol, and I say it soberly.”

Newsom has not provided any evidence to suggest that the Department of Homeland Security will deploy immigration agents to polling places. But he pointed to the Los Angeles campaign launch event for Prop. 50, his plan to redraw state congressional districts in favor of Democrats, where federal immigration agents blocked supporters from entering the district and detained a nearby strawberry vendor.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman wrote in a statement that the agency “does not plan operations targeting polling places,” but that if agents track a “dangerous criminal alien” approaching a polling place, they could be arrested there. A spokesman for Customs and Border Patrol did not respond to emailed questions.

The governor argued that the Trump administration’s indiscriminate immigration actions, military and National Guard deployments are designed to suppress Democratic voters and maintain Republican control of Congress during a Trump presidency.

“We know the intent of this administration is to rig the midterms next year,” Newsom told reporters recently. “It’s absolutely predictable. It’s a script that’s been written for centuries. It’s the authoritarian game.”

Trump Administration Department of Justice announced on Friday that it will deployed staff to monitor polling stations in five counties: Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside on Election Day. Fresno, Kern and Riverside counties are predominantly Latino.

The poll watchers will “ensure transparency, ballot security and compliance with federal law,” according to the department. The administration did not say whether agents would be stationed at polling stations in addition to county election offices where ballots are counted.

Democrats condemned the plan.

“Deploying federal forces to ‘observe’ elections is nothing more than a scare tactic designed to suppress voting,” said Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party. “What Republicans really fear is record voter turnout and a clear verdict from the people of California in favor of Prop 50.”

‘Disturbingly’ many Latinos fear ICE at the polls

The majority of Californians vote by mail, especially since the state adopted universal mail voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just over 80% of the votes cast in the 2024 presidential election were mail-in ballots.

But voting in person on Election Day is a point of pride for many American immigrants, especially Latinos, said Yvette Martinez, executive director of the California Democratic Party.

“It’s a cultural thing,” Martinez said. “People want to show up and say, ‘I’m a patriot, this is my civic duty. I’m here to vote, I’m here to make my voice heard. And when you suppress that, it’s dangerous. And it’s actually sad.”

In a September survey of 1,200 registered Latino voters conducted by the Latino Community Foundation, a nonprofit that funds Latino advocacy, 53 percent said they plan to vote in person. Of these, more than half said they would vote on election day.

The same survey also found that two-thirds of Hispanic voters surveyed said they were at least somewhat worried that ICE or Border Patrol agents might show up at the polls. The survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

“These are citizens of this country. And if they’re concerned about immigration or any kind of federal presence at in-person voting locations, that’s troubling,” said Christian Arana, who directs the foundation’s political strategy.

“If people want to vote in person, that’s their fundamental right,” Arana said. “I don’t ever want us to be subject to the fear that you can’t participate in democracy because the immigration service might show up.”

So far in the race for Prop. 50 only 9 percent of registered Hispanic voters returned their ballots, according to the most recent data available from Political Data Inc., compared with 19 percent of white voters and 13 percent of black voters. California pollster Ben Tulchin, who recently polled Latino voters on Prop. 50, said those numbers are “not unusual” because Latino voters tend to lag behind other ethnic and racial groups in voting.

This is Anna CaballeroDemocrat from Merced, said U.S. citizens have told her they are afraid to go outside, especially when there are reports of ICE surveillance in the region. Many of her constituents come from mixed-status families in which some family members are citizens and others are not. She blames the Trump administration for terrifying these families so much that they don’t want to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary.

“This idea that all you have to do is take out your driver’s license or some kind of documentation, that’s a fantasy,” Caballero said. “American citizens have been detained and taken into custody.”

Recent a ProPublica investigation found that at least 170 US citizens have been wrongfully detained by ICE since the second Trump administration took office, drawing strong criticism from opponents. The top Democrats on the House and Senate government oversight committees, Congressman Robert Garcia of California and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, have launched an investigation.

Member of the Assembly Esmeralda Soriaanother Democrat from Merced and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, said after the Supreme Court issued its ruling on racial profiling earlier this summer, she keeps her passport in her purse at all times.

“Just because you might look like an immigrant — which I don’t even know what that actually means — you know, I could be a target, too,” Soria said.

“My Voice Will Be Heard”

Opponents of Newsom’s redistricting plan say the governor’s warnings of intimidation and interference by federal agents on Election Day are overblown.

“People see it for what it is. It’s politics, it grabs headlines,” said Hector Barajas, a spokesman for the No on 50 campaign.

Barajas blasted Democrats for what he said was a deliberate disenfranchisement of non-white voters, since historically white voters with college degrees are much more likely to turn out in off-year elections.

“This is what happens with special elections, people don’t show up to vote, especially Hispanics, which in itself is a sad tragedy,” Barajas said.

Martinez said first-time Democratic Party volunteers are urging voters to return their ballots early by mail or drop them off when they go door-to-door and hand out pamphlets with instructions on how to report any suspicious activity near polling places.

The party has also trained hundreds of volunteers as election monitors who will monitor polling stations for signs of intimidation or federal interference starting the weekend before Election Day.

Arana of the Latino Community Foundation said he chooses to vote in person as an act of defiance.

“I see it as a form of declaration that I’m Latino in the state,” he said. “My voice will be heard on this matter and no one will ever take that right away from me.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.