Were the ICE Operations in American cities about more than immigration?
By Charles Ray - February 22, 2026
Beginning on September 8, 2025, when hundreds of ICE and CBP agents descended upon the city of Chicago, launching operation Midway Blitz, targeting specific neighborhoods based on intelligence reports, the country has been subject to a daily diet of news about people (not all of them illegal immigrants) being snatched from homes, cars, and even courthouses in the Trump administration's mission to arrest and deport ‘the worst of the worst’. Their tactics initially involved unmarked vehicles and staggered arrival times, adapted to avoid community observers and media coverage.
Three months later, on December 1, 2025, Operation Metro Surge, with some 3,000 agents, was launched in Minneapolis. DHS didn’t officially announce this operation until December 4. Tactics were further adapted from what they’d learned in Chicago in response to the rapid, massive mobilization of local resistance, including the deployment of decoy vehicles. Agents were even more aggressive, not just in their handling of suspected undocumented immigrants, but also against civilian observers, killing two in separate incidents, and immediately labeling the victims as domestic terrorists, despite video evidence to the contrary.
In and of themselves, these actions have been extremely controversial, drawing intense criticism from the affected city and state officials, as well as from other parts of the country and abroad, for their brutality and questionable legality. At the risk of sounding like a tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, I think there is a distinct possibility that what we’ve witnessed over the past three months, as bad as it is, is but the tip of the iceberg, and could very well portend another tragedy, unrelated to immigration. There would appear to be a real danger of their use as a paramilitary force to affect the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.
There is compelling evidence that the United States is currently on a downward slide toward competitive authoritarianism, a form of autocracy in which the incumbent party abuses its power to undermine the opposition in nominally democratic elections. The misuse of state power, such as subverting the electoral process, is one of the steps that would-be autocrats take to consolidate their hold on power. In some cases, this involves the use of the military or other state security services to intimidate the opposition and its participation in the election process.
During his first term in office, Donald Trump frequently commented on the potential use of the military in major cities, especially in the context of civil unrest or perceived threats to public order. Such comments have recurred in his current term. In a September 29, 2025, meeting that Trump and his defense secretary Pete Hegseth had with top military commanders, Trump spoke of needing the military to combat the ‘invasion from within,’ and suggested that some American cities could be used as ‘training grounds for our military.’ The officers in attendance sat stone-faced and silent through both Trump’s and Hegseth’s highly partisan and provocative speeches. Trump, who avoided the draft during Vietnam, has long held the military brass in disdain, and it’s likely that he was aware of the cold reception they gave to his remarks. That, the Posse Comitatus Act, and the long-held tradition of an apolitical military probably chilled any thoughts he might have had about using the active duty military to affect elections. The same is probably true of the National Guard. On the one hand, members of state guard units might be reluctant to take action against their neighbors, and shipping in guard units from other states would require assistance from the active military and would be a logistical nightmare. In addition, in September 2025, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s June deployment of California National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the objections of California’s governor violated the Posse Comitatus Act, leading to their eventual withdrawal.
The actions and words of the president and his defense secretary (who the administration now calls the Secretary of War) have sparked widespread debate over the legality of their plans and would no doubt spark a plethora of court cases should they try to use the military in a domestic law-enforcement capacity.
So, the active-duty military and National Guard are effectively off the table as tools to intimidate American voters. That leaves a paramilitary force that is not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, whose leadership the president can rely on to do his bidding.
Enter the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its subordinate units, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), both of which have demonstrated their willingness and ability to be as brutal toward American citizens as Adolf Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (SA) was in his rise to power in the 1920s.
But it’s not just ICE and CBP and their actions that cause me to fear that the administration has nefarious plans for November’s elections. Actions over the past several months by people, all the way from the top, have been so outrageous that there’s a danger that the public will just yawn and say, “There they go again.” With this administration, though, that’s a dangerous thing to do. Often, they mean exactly what they say.
While no single action or speech can necessarily indicate potential actions, when taken together, the following show a disturbing trend.
After the FBI seized Fulton County, GA, ballots from the 2020 election on January 28, 2026, Trump told conservative podcaster Dan Bongino on February 2 that he wanted Republicans to ‘take over the voting in 15 states in order to nationalize the 2026 midterm elections.’ This is part of his continuing, but unsubstantiated, claim that there is widespread voting fraud by noncitizens. These claims have been debunked by audits conducted by Georgia’s Republican secretary of state in 2024, which found that only 20 of the 8.2 million registered voters in Georgia were noncitizens, and only 9 of them had ever cast ballots. Even an ongoing investigation by Trump’s own DHS has found little evidence of widespread voting fraud by noncitizens.
One of the more troubling aspects of the FBI raid on the Fulton County voting office was the presence of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who claimed that she was there at the request of the president.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed lawsuits against 18 states that Trump lost in the 2020 election, demanding access to sensitive voter data. DOJ claims it wants this data to check whether states are complying with federal law on maintaining accurate voter rolls.
In late February, the FBI invited state election officials nationwide to participate in a call on its preparations for the midterm elections, which will also include officials from DHS, DOJ, the US Postal Inspection Service, and the Election Assistance Commission.
While DHS does have a limited role in assisting states in protecting elections, it has no role in operating them. The agency’s understanding of the limits of its role was called into question when DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, speaking at a press briefing in Arizona on February 13, 2026, made comments that could cause people to misinterpret DHS’s role, including saying, that DHS has a responsibility to make sure “we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders.” Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon suggested that the administration send ICE agents to polling places during the midterms, a proposal the White House declined to rule out.
Federal law prohibits voter intimidation, and multiple laws restrict the deployment of troops or armed federal law enforcement at polling places, with limited exceptions. This, however, does not rule out the use of ICE in some form to discourage voting, particularly in neighborhoods with significant immigrant or minority populations. Use of tactics such as the visible presence of armed agents in neighborhoods (not necessarily at polling places), vehicle checkpoints, and high-profile operations in the period before the elections could have a chilling effect on residents of those neighborhoods coming out to vote. It could be argued that ICE operations so far have already affected turnout in November.
These are not predictions, but descriptions of past events, and assessments of what they could mean. The things that have been done cannot be undone, but a proactive approach combining legal, civic, and governmental measures could mitigate future impact.
Congress and state legislatures can strengthen and clarify laws that prohibit armed presence and intimidation near voting sites, or even during the period before elections. These laws should ensure robust enforcement and clear penalties. Civil rights groups, advocacy organizations, and local officials should collaborate to monitor polling locations and vulnerable neighborhoods, provide voter education, and establish rapid-response teams to document and report any attempts at intimidation.
Ultimately, local election officials, law enforcement agencies, and the judiciary must remain vigilant and act swiftly to uphold the integrity of the democratic process, while individual voters can play a crucial role by staying informed and engaged to protect their rights.
The US Congress can play a critical role by proactively preventing DHS from exceeding its authority and interfering in the midterm—or any—elections. It can use its legislative authority to enact statutes that explicitly restrict federal agencies, including DHS and ICE, from engaging in activities near polling places or during periods before elections that could be perceived as voter intimidation. Oversight hearings and investigations allow Congress to hold agency officials accountable and ensure transparency regarding enforcement operations during elections. Congress also controls agency funding and can attach conditions or limitations to appropriations that further limit the scope of DHS activities related to elections.
Executive overreach is a threat to our democratic system of government, and when it involves elections, it strikes at the very heart of government, of the people, for the people, and by the people. Whether the implied threats to our democracy are valid, they are too important to be ignored. In this case, the wise course would be to enact protective measures to make sure they never become reality.