By admin 
The city of Denver, Latino advocacy and voting rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday to try to prevent armed immigration officers from conducting enforcement actions at polling places across the country in November’s election.
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According to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin on Sept. 1 confirmed and clarified a policy authorizing armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to conduct enforcement operations at polling places, including serving warrants and detaining people suspected of being in the country illegally.
The lawsuit says the presence of ICE agents and other immigration officers would violate a law that has prohibited armed federal authorities from going to polling places since the Civil War and would be intimidating and threatening to voters.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said it was not planning operations targeting polling locations but said there may be arrests there if it determined there was “an active public safety threat” that endangered a polling location.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul Lopez both said they supported the lawsuit.
“The right to vote, and to do so without fear of intimidation, is fundamental to our democracy and to being an American. Stationing ICE agents near polling places is only meant to scare people and suppress votes. We’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent it,” Johnston said in a press release by the groups behind the lawsuit, which includes the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, and Common Cause.
Citing news reports, the lawsuit says that ICE agents conducted operations at polling places in San Antonio, Texas, Ventura County, California and Syracuse, New York, in May and June.
It doesn’t cite any examples of that happening in Denver or Colorado, where most voters cast their ballots by mail.
Still, Denver officials are concerned that armed ICE agents could show up at voting centers, either during early voting or Election Day, or at ballot drop-off boxes, the lawsuit said.
“The presence of armed federal agents at the drop boxes may deter Denver voters from returning their ballots and may intimidate or disrupt election judges and staff from attempting to collect those ballots, impairing the Clerk’s ability to collect ballots as required by Colorado law,” the lawsuit said.
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