A federal judge excoriated ICE over the weekend after the agency reported it expects to turn over records about potentially deploying agents at polling places next June — well past the November midterm elections.
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Judge Beryl A. Howell’s order, issued on Aug. 22, found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s report that it anticipates disclosure of the records by June 2027 to be “an unacceptable delay given the proximity of the 2026 midterm elections.”
Howell’s reprimand comes after ICE turned over 576 pages of worthless press clippings earlier this month to the Democratic National Committee, despite the party explicitly directing the government to exclude stand-alone news articles lacking commentary from officials.
Government lawyers had previously told the court ICE had zero documents responsive to the DNC request for records concerning the potential deployment of agents to polling places, despite widespread news coverage of agents entering a polling place in New York earlier this year to confront a local election official about a social media post decrying the killing of Renee Good.
ICE referred questions about the order to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to an email from Raw Story.
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Last month, the judge ordered ICE, along with other federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, FBI and Department of Defense, to begin processing 1,000 pages per month. In a joint status report filed on Friday, the DNC noted that ICE set a schedule for itself on the seventh day of each month to turn over new documents — seven days after every other agency. As a result, ICE will only make two more productions before the Nov. 3 general election.
With 10,698 pages identified as potentially responsive to the DNC’s request, that means ICE will still hold more than 8,000 pages after the election.
“Yet ICE is the federal law enforcement agency that has appeared at active polling locations and even entered a polling place this year,” DNC lawyers told the court. “The status quo would leave DNC and the voters it represents without knowledge of any ICE plans or guidelines heading into Election Day.”
The Democrats renewed a request for ICE to turn over documents in batches every two days. Department of Justice lawyers responded that the request should be rejected because it would tie up the government’s resources with “the mechanics of finalizing, clearing and transmitting” the documents.
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The judge has yet to rule on the request.
