Threat of stationing immigration agents around voting locations has become a concern as it can be a deterrent to legal residents of color who are concerned they may be harassed by federal agents
The White House refused to rule out following through on the threat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents being sent out to āsurround the pollsā when voters cast ballots in this Novemberās midterm elections as a way of depressing Democratic turnout and boosting chances of Republican victories in the House of Representatives and Senate.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday said she could offer āno guaranteeā that ICE personnel would not be stationed at polling sites when Americans are in the process of choosing whether to extend the Republican stranglehold on power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
She had been asked about former White House chief strategist Steve Bannonās recent call for Trump to deploy ICE around election sites on his War Room podcast on Tuesday, just days after Trump himself called for a Republican ātakeoverā of vote-counting in Democratic-led states and municipalities.
Prominent Republicans have been saying this kind of thing, in various ways, since at least the 1980s. If people want to delude themselves and call standard Republican stuff ātrumpismā or even more incoherent and nebulous things like āmagaā, I donāt know what to tell them. This is stock conservative/Republican stuff.
This is Paul Weyrich in 1980:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw