Trump Says He Won’t Rule Out Deploying ICE to Polling Places: ‘We’ll See’

NEED TO KNOW

• President Donald Trump declined to rule out sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to polling sites in November

• "Haven't thought of it," Trump said in a TIME interview published on Oct. 1, before adding, "We'll see"

• In May, Trump said, "I'd do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections," when asked if he would deploy the National Guard or ICE to voting locations

In a wide-ranging interview for a Time magazine cover story, President Donald Trump did not rule out sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to polling sites in November.

Though the president projected a Republican victory in the hotly contested midterm elections if he campaigns in key races, he said he doesn't "rule anything out or in" when asked if he would dispatch ICE agents to polling places.

"Haven't thought of it," Trump said in the Monday, Sept. 28 interview . "We'll see. You mean the Insurrection Act?"

"I've never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes," the president continued.

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's requests for comment on Thursday.

In February, then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she couldn't "guarantee" ICE agents wouldn't be standing outside polling locations in November after former White House strategist Steve Bannon said the president was "going to have ICE surround the polls come November."

"I can't guarantee that an ICE agent won't be around a polling location in November," Leavitt said, dismissing a question about the proposal as "very silly."

In May, Trump said, "I'd do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections" when asked if he would deploy the National Guard or ICE to voting locations .

The Insurrection Act is an amalgamation of laws passed by Congress in the 1700s and 1800s that "authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations," according to the Brennan Center for Justice .

Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy used the act to deploy troops to the American South to desegregate schools that barred Black children from attending, according to the Brennan Center.

It's been invoked roughly 30 times, according to the legal nonprofit, most recently by President George H.W. Bush in response to the protests and riots in Los Angeles after four white police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King , a Black man.

Trump has r epeatedly deployed the military into U.S. cities in his second term without invoking the Insurrection Act, including sending Marines and the National Guard to Los Angeles and deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C. , Chicago and Portland, Ore. He has also dispatched large contingents of ICE and other federal law enforcement agents into Democratic-controlled cities and states.

On Thursday, Oct. 1 — the day Trump's Time interview was published — the family of Renee Good sued the federal government and several current and former Trump administration officials in a pair of lawsuits alleging negligence and intentional misconduct that contributed to her fatal shooting by ICE officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis in January.

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was one of two U.S. citizens, along with nurse Alex Pretti , who were killed by federal officers during a surge in Minneapolis last winter.

Donna Ganger, Good's mother, said at a Capitol Hill forum last week, "I am a registered Republican. I voted for President Trump under the impression that these agents were here to protect the citizens of the United States, innocents like our family and the others here, against terrorists. Certainly not to accuse those of us here of being terrorists and take precious lives."

She added, "This is madness."

Also in January, the FBI raided election offices in Fulton County, Ga. , as the president continued to falsely insist the 2020 election was stolen from him. Fulton County was also the site of one of the four criminal prosecutions against the president during his time out of office.

Wyoming's Republican governor, Mark Gordon, denounced the Justice Department's deployment of officials to monitor poll workers and voters during his state's primary in August.

"I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns. I don't like that. I don't like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either," Gordon said, according to The Associated Press .

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The midterms will decide control of Congress, where Republicans currently control both the House and the Senate. Public polls in key races recently suggested Democrats are in a good position to retake at least one chamber, but the president remained optimistic for his party.

Speaking to Time , Trump said public polls showing him near record-low approval and record-high disapproval are "fake numbers," adding, "I would beat anybody running today by 20 points."

"I think we'll do okay if I campaign, and I intend to," Trump said. "You don't give me enough credit. When I campaign, I give people a lot."

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