Denver, Latino civil rights groups sue to stop ICE from sending armed agents to voting sites

The city of Denver, government watchdogs and Latino civil rights groups filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in Washington, D.C., to stop the Trump administration from sending armed federal immigration agents to serve warrants at polling locations. The lawsuit argues that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and David Venturella, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are violating federal laws protecting free and fair elections by allowing federal agents to enforce immigration laws at polling sites, the New York Times reported. 
The lawsuit states that the presence of federal agents arresting illegal immigrants would interfere with the “smooth administration of elections at the local level.” 
“It disrupts voting and makes it more difficult for state and local election officials and law enforcement to do their jobs by making polling places spaces of confrontation,” the lawsuit argues. 
The lawsuit also argues that federal law bans military personnel or other “armed” agents from being “at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.”
Mullin told reporters in New York last week that Democrats were fearmongering and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers weren’t patrolling polling locations. They would be only at polling site, Mullin said, if there was a threat or they were serving a warrant. 

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