对投票站出现移民与海关执法局（ICE）人员的担忧，对特朗普政府而言是一把双刃剑：一方面担心联邦移民执法人员会非法聚集在选民身边，另一方面担心活动人士和记者通过放大这种恐惧，反而会帮联邦政府实施选民恐吓。
Anxiety over ICE at the polls is a double-edged sword for the Trump administration: There’s the fear that federal immigration agents will illegally descend on voters, and there’s the threat that by boosting awareness of that fear, activists and journalists will help the federal government carry out the work of voter intimidation.
“哪怕只是关于‘ICE出现在投票站’的传言，也会散布恐惧。这不是我们想要的，”德克萨斯州全州性民主与司法议题组织联盟“Texas for All”副主任丹尼拉·帕迪拉（Daniela Padilla）说。“哪怕你们报道‘我们在监控投票站是否有ICE’——也可能吓退选民。”
“Even just rumors of [ICE at the polls] are going to spread fear. That’s not what we want,” said Daniela Padilla, deputy director at Texas for All, a statewide coalition of organizations working on democracy and justice issues. “Even your reporting around, ‘We’re watching for ICE at the polls’ — it could scare voters.”
在拉丁裔占人口40%、共和党长期把持政权如今面临挑战的德克萨斯州，确实存在担忧：移民与海关执法局特工可能会现身目标社区，让人们不敢在周二出来投票。但尽管选举干扰被讨论为今年中期选举的几大“重头戏”之一，帕迪拉表示，“我们今年在德州面临的最大威胁是选民压制。”这种压制可以采取多种形式。例如在塔兰特县，当地官员关闭了92个投票站，早期投票期间的报告显示，一些选举官员错误地拒绝了合格选民。
In Texas, a 40 percent Latino state where a longtime Republican grip on power now finds itself in question, there are real concerns that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents could pop up in targeted communities to make people afraid to go out and vote on Tuesday. But while the possibility of election interference has been discussed as one of several “big ticket items” of this year’s midterms, Padilla said, “the biggest threat that we face in Texas this year is voter suppression.”That suppression can take many forms. In Tarrant County, for example, where local officials closed 92 polling locations, reports from early voting indicated some election officials wrongly turned away eligible voters.
帕迪拉和几位在德州从事选举诚信与投票权利工作的组织者告诉《拦截者》（The Intercept），他们担心的不是ICE真的会走近投票站，而是记者放大特朗普政府“用ICE和联邦特工包围投票站”的声明计划，可能会无意中成为一种选民压制形式。
More than fearing ICE would actually approach the polls, Padilla and several organizers working on election integrity and voting rights in Texas told The Intercept they were worried that journalists amplifying the Trump administration’s stated plans to “surround the polls” with ICE and federal agents could function as an inadvertent form of voter suppression.
联邦和州法律禁止联邦移民执法人员进入投票站，并禁止任何形式的选民恐吓。这些法律并未阻止特朗普政府及其盟友威胁在选举期间在全国部署移民与海关执法局（ICE）人员和军事人员。8月，司法部宣布计划派遣至少1000名联邦监察员监督中期选举投票，促使多个州表示不会允许他们进入投票站。当缅因州等州准备应对联邦人员出现在投票站时，司法部向《新闻周刊》声称，它“从未说过”会派遣联邦执法人员到投票站。
Federal and state law prohibits federal immigration agents from being inside polling sites and bar any form of voter intimidation. Those laws haven’t stopped the Trump administration and its allies from threatening to deploy ICE and military personnel around the country during elections. In August, the Department of Justice announced that it planned to send at least 1,000 federal monitors to oversee midterm voting, prompting multiple states to assert they would not let them inside polling locations. As states like Maine prepared to respond to the federal presence at the polls, the DOJ claimed to Newsweek it “never said” it would send federal law enforcement to the polls.
“特朗普政府几个月来一直在散布恐惧，拒绝表态不会派遣ICE人员到投票站，”德克萨斯州Common Cause组织政策主任艾米莉·弗伦奇说。“我认为，特朗普政府围绕ICE进驻投票站展开讨论的主要作用，是恐吓选民，让他们在选举日不敢出门投票。”据德克萨斯组织项目执行主任布里安娜·布朗称，虚假信息行动是德克萨斯州常见的选民压制手段。“所以我们正试图让人们放心，投票是安全的，”她说。
“The Trump administration has been spreading fear for months, refusing to say that they will not send ICE to the polls,” said Emily French, policy director at Common Cause Texas. “I think that the main function of this discussion around ICE at the polls from the Trump administration is scaring people into staying home on Election Day.”According to Brianna Brown, executive director of the Texas Organizing Project, disinformation efforts are a common voter-suppression tactic in Texas. “So we’re trying to reassure people it’s safe to vote,” she said.
德克萨斯州是全美最具戏剧性的潜在参议院席位翻盘战场之一，民主党籍州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科在民调中领先该州深陷丑闻的共和党总检察长肯·帕克斯顿，这场竞选可能让德克萨斯州自90年代以来首次诞生一位民主党参议员。布朗说，即使没有ICE的因素，这个拥有3200万人口的州已有足够多的选民压制策略，她指出2021年一项法案禁止了汽车穿梭投票，削弱了对残障选民的保护，并赋予了代表候选人或政党任命的选举观察员更大权力。“德克萨斯州简直就是一场完美风暴，”布朗说。
Texas is home to one of the most dramatic potential Senate upsets in the country, with Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leading in the polls over the state’s scandal-plagued Republican attorney general Ken Paxton in a race that could see Texas end up with a Democratic senator for the first time since the ’90s. And the 32 million-person state has enough voter suppression strategies even without ICE in the picture, Brown said, pointing to a 2021 bill that banned drive-through voting, weakened protections for disabled voters, and gave more power to poll watchers appointed on behalf of a candidate or political party. “Texas is just like a perfect storm,” Brown said.
今年5月，当美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）人员出现在圣安东尼奥的一个投票站时——这标志着今年初选期间全美首个已知的ICE现身投票站案例——该县治安官将这些联邦特工赶了出去。即便如此，当时似乎并没有迹象表明联邦特工是在针对正在投票的人；他们是在州警在该投票站停车场拦下某人后不久抵达现场的，而他们与州警合作密切。
When ICE showed up at a polling site in San Antonio in May — marking the first known case of ICE at the polls in the country during this year’s primaries — the county sheriff kicked the agents out. Even then, it did not appear that the federal agents were targeting someone in the process of voting; they had arrived at the scene shortly after state police, with whom they work closely, pulled someone over in the polling site’s parking lot.
那天，得克萨斯组织项目的工作人员以及作为得克萨斯选举保护联盟一部分的多个公民权利和投票权利组织，协助协调联系当地治安官，促使ICE离开该地点。
That day, staff at the Texas Organizing Project and a group of civil and voting rights organizations working as part of the Texas Election Protection coalition helped coordinate outreach to the local sheriff to get ICE removed from the site.
这个州级联盟是全国性努力的一部分，旨在保护今年的选举免受干扰——无论是联邦层面的还是其他形式的。在得克萨斯州，律师委员会以及包括芭芭拉·乔丹领导力学院、共同事业得克萨斯分会和得克萨斯民权项目在内的其他几个组织，一直在培训人员，帮助确保选民在选举日了解自己的权利，并将任何选民恐吓事件——无论是合格选民被错误拒之门外，还是有人发现ICE人员——向全国热线举报。
The state coalition is part of a nationwide effort to protect this year’s elections from interference — federal or otherwise. In Texas, the Lawyers’ Committee and several other groups including the Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute, Common Cause Texas, and the Texas Civil Rights Project have been training people to help make sure voters know their rights on Election Day and that they report any instances of voter intimidation — whether an eligible voter is wrongly turned away or someone spots ICE — to a national hotline.
“我们想让人们知情，但不想吓退他们去投票站，”芭芭拉·乔丹领导力学院执行主任卡奈·特纳-奥斯本说。她说，在她所在的塔兰特县，她没有听到太多关于ICE在投票站附近出现的担忧，那里的选民可以在全县任何投票站投票。但即便如此，对于身处ICE活动频发区和其他形式选民压制热点地区的选民，该组织已建议他们考虑在另一个合格的投票地点投票。
“We want to inform people, but we don’t want to scare them from coming to the polls,” said Khanay Turner-Osborne, executive director of the Barber Jordan Leadership Institute. She said she hasn’t heard much concern about ICE showing up around polling sites in Tarrant County, where she’s based and where people can vote at any polling site in the county. But still, for voters in hotspots of ICE activity and other forms of voter suppression, the group has told them to consider voting at a different eligible site, she said.
特纳-奥斯本说，该组织希望帮助人们做好准备。“但我不希望这种方式会阻碍人们去投票。”
The group wants to help people prepare, Turner-Osborne said. “But I don’t want it to be in a way that deters people from voting.”