NAACP sues Trump administration over armed agents at the polls

The NAACP and eight other civil rights and labor organizations sued the Trump administration on Friday to stop federal agents from being stationed at polling places during November’s midterm elections.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI among the defendants. Plaintiffs include the National Urban League, the League of United Latin American Citizens, OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, Mi Familia en Accion, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, according to UPI’s report on the filing.

The complaint argues the agencies would violate Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which bars intimidating, threatening or coercing voters. “The voter suppression tactics that led Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act are re-emerging in a modern form,” the complaint states, according to UPI. It asks a judge to declare that deploying armed agents to or near polling sites is unlawful and to bar the administration from doing so. The plaintiffs wrote that members of their organizations “credibly fear that their participation in this November’s midterm elections will subject them to physical force and increased surveillance by the federal government,” according to MS NOW.

The lawsuit points to DHS Secretary Mullin’s own public comments as evidence of the threat. Mullin said ICE officers could be sent to polling places during the midterms “if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant,” according to a report from MS NOW. A separate DHS spokesperson said the agency was “not planning operations targeting polling locations” and that any presence would stem from “intelligence-driven targeted enforcement” tied to specific public safety threats rather than the elections themselves.

The complaint cites the fatal shooting of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers during a January 2026 enforcement operation in Minneapolis as an example of the fear such deployments can produce among voters. The suit also says the administration conditioned the withdrawal of its federal deployment in Minnesota on the state surrendering private voter roll data, referring to a letter then-Attorney General Pam Bondi sent to Gov. Tim Walz after the shootings, MS NOW reported. It also notes the Justice Department sent election monitors to primary elections earlier this year and is planning to deploy up to 1,000 more monitors for the November midterms.

A Justice Department spokesperson, Kiersten Pels, dismissed the lawsuit’s allegations as “fearmongering.” The plaintiffs are represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund along with the Brennan Center for Justice, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Immigration Law Center, Protect Democracy and the Democracy Defenders Fund.

“All American voters have the sacred right to have a voice in our democracy, and should be able to exercise that right freely and without fear,” Legal Defense Fund President Janai Nelson said in a statement announcing the suit. “Using federal law enforcement as a scare tactic to target and intimidate Black communities is illegal and antithetical to the promise of a multiracial democracy that was enshrined in the Voting Rights Act.”

MS NOW also reported a separate suit filed in Denver seeking to block ICE from being deployed to polling sites. The NAACP filed the suit as early voting began in several states Friday, with six weeks left before voters decide which party controls Congress, according to MS NOW. The midterm elections are scheduled for November 3, 2026.