ICE activity surges across US ahead of midterms, but early voter turnout is surging too

In the weeks ahead of the US midterm elections, cities and states across the country are reporting a notable rise in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity, according to reports gathered by NPR and its member stations. Throughout October, tips about surges in ICE enforcement have come in from rural Illinois, Oregon, Detroit and California.

Very early on Wednesday morning, Dover, New Jersey, councilwoman Sandra Wittner started getting messages about immigration agents: a dozen or more were gathering outside a Walgreens. Throughout the day, neighbours in north New Jersey saw a spike in ICE activity. “There was definitely a lot of apprehension and fear,” Wittner recalls. “We just really weren't sure if something huge was about to happen. People were not feeling very comfortable or safe.” She is not sure who was detained or where — these days it is difficult to report on ICE crackdowns as they happen, because the Department of Homeland Security no longer publicly shares timely information on its operations.

NPR wrote to the agency to ask whether there has been a recent surge. It responded: “ICE agents uphold our nation's immigration laws in all 50 states, seven days a week, 24 hours a day.”

New York City has seen the same pattern. An official within Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office, who was not authorised to speak publicly, confirmed a noted surge in ICE activity in the city. “We're certainly witnessing an uptick in activity, and have been since the summer,” said a member of a volunteer group of neighbours in New York, who asked that her name not be used for fear of retaliation. Her group goes to the scene of ICE operations, documents them, reminds those being detained of their rights and alerts neighbours. “In the past few weeks we've seen numerous large operations, or what we call cluster raids, multiple agents going to one spot and then the next,” she said.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Troy Brynelson has reported a similar trend on the other side of the country. “What we were seeing in early October and what we've seen continue, at least anecdotally throughout this month, is that ICE activity has really picked up in Portland,” he said, adding that it seems concentrated in commercial areas and is a noticeable uptick compared with the summer.

Juan Proaño of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a civil rights organisation, says he is concerned because this is happening so close to the midterm elections. “It's not about ICE at the actual polling station, it's ICE at the perimeter of the polling station,” he said. “Mass enforcement actions could be away from the polls, but with social media and the news, it could be enough to dissuade somebody from actually going out to vote.”

Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School said the tactics the administration has been deploying in communities “really appear to be designed to try to intimidate voters”. Despite that, she said, early turnout is surging. “The good news is: it isn't working. Americans are tuning this out and we are not seeing a significant impact on participation. And we are actually seeing huge surges in participation in communities of color, and in Latino communities, and in all the communities that have been targeted by ICE and DHS.”

Even so, Weiser said intimidation at the polls is illegal and should be reported. The reports, in short, describe enforcement rising ahead of the vote — and voters, at least in early voting, turning out in greater numbers anyway.