The NAACP, the Service Employees International Union, and the American Federation of Teachers are among nine civil rights and labor organizations that sued the Trump administration Friday to block threatened use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and other federal agents at or around polling places in the midterm elections.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the complaint alleges that administration statements and actions have put voters of color, naturalized citizens, and mixed-status families in reasonable fear of federal interference at the ballot, chilling participation ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Plaintiffs sue under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which bars intimidation, threats, and coercion — and attempted intimidation — against people voting, attempting to vote, or helping others vote. The Supreme Court weakened other parts of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year; Section 11(b) was left intact. The suit seeks a declaration and an injunction against deployments that intimidate voters or anyone urging or aiding them.

Officials' statements at the center of the case

The complaint cites a run of public remarks. On Aug. 31, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE would not patrol polling places but could appear "if there is a threat to that polling place or we're serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down," adding, "If we're serving a warrant we will be where we need to be." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said the administration could not guarantee that ICE agents would stay away from the polls. Attorney General Todd Blanche has questioned objections to ICE at voting sites, asking, "Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?" and, separately, "what's the risk?" of having Border Patrol or ICE at a polling location. White House immigration official Thomas Homan, asked whether agents had been ordered to stay clear of voting sites, replied that there is "no sensitive location policy" and "We'll go where we've got to go to apprehend these people." FBI Director Kash Patel, pressed in the Senate this week, declined to rule out agents at the polls, saying that "[i]f there's a reason to go there" based on "a violation," then "we will."

Separately, Homeland Security has said it is "not planning operations targeting polling locations," while adding that arrests could follow if an active public-safety threat endangered a site, language that tracks Mullin's threat-and-warrant caveats.

Jim Crow framing, fraud claims, and parallel suits

The coalition's complaint recounts Jim Crow history, casts federal agents at the polls under fraud pretexts as a continuation of that intimidation, and links the pattern to Trump's attack on the 2020 election, including claims of fraud in cities with large Black and Latino populations such as Detroit and Philadelphia. NAACP General Counsel Kristen Clarke said the groups are asking the court to reject tactics "pulled straight from the Jim Crow playbook."

Officials' claims that immigrants threaten election validity, the complaint states, ignore substantial evidence that such occurrences are exceedingly rare.

The case is distinct from a related Denver and Latino-rights suit that targets armed federal presence near polls chiefly under a Civil War–era statute, 18 U.S.C. § 592, barring armed men at elections except to repel armed enemies of the United States. Friday's NAACP-led action centers on Voting Rights Act intimidation. The NAACP previously sued Trump in the same D.C. federal court under the Ku Klux Klan Act and the Voting Rights Act over 2020 efforts targeting cities with large Black populations — Michigan Welfare Rights Organization et al. v. Trump — an adjacent theory from the same plaintiff organization; that case was dismissed without prejudice in 2024.

What plaintiffs say they want

"Using federal law enforcement as a scare tactic to target and intimidate Black communities is illegal," said Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. Clarke said the groups reject converting polling sites into "militarized zones" through "the unlawful deployment of ICE or any other federal agent." AFT President Randi Weingarten called armed federal presence at the polls "intimidation pure and simple."

"The Trump administration has been waging a campaign to undermine American elections, and their insinuations that federal law enforcement agents might be at the polls this November are part of that effort," said Jasleen Singh, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the defendants' conduct violates Section 11(b) and an injunction barring threatened use of ICE and other federal law enforcement at or around polling places in ways that intimidate voters.

Six weeks to the election

Several states opened early voting Friday, with roughly six weeks until the Nov. 3 election. The fight now sits with a federal judge in Washington as the coalition presses for that injunction before Election Day.

The nine plaintiffs are the NAACP, Mi Familia en Acción, OCA–Asian Pacific American Advocates, the National Urban League, Minnesota 8, SEIU, AFT, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. They are represented by the Legal Defense Fund, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Brennan Center for Justice, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Immigration Law Center, Protect Democracy, and Democracy Defenders Fund. The complaint names the Department of Homeland Security, Mullin, ICE and its acting director, the Justice Department, Blanche, the FBI and Patel, and Homan.