ICE secretly ordered to halt immigration raids on Election Day
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
ICE officials say stand-down orders for a "national no enforcement day" circulated before Election Day.
The orders were verbal and anonymous, so their scope is disputed.
Background
ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is the federal agency that carries out immigration arrests and deportations through its Enforcement and Removal Operations division. According to The Intercept, citing ICE officials in four areas of responsibility, orders to halt enforcement on Election Day were passed down quietly through internal group chats and verbal commands rather than official email, reportedly to avoid media attention. The report comes as the Trump administration faced court blocks on election-related enforcement, and as a Wall Street Journal poll of 79,000 voters found 6 in 10 respondents saying in effect that ICE has gone too far.
How it unfolded
- Nov 2, 2026Orders for a "national no enforcement day" began circulating inside ICE, handed down through Enforcement and Removal Operations via internal group chats and verbal commands.
- Nov 3, 2026ICE warned that anyone who votes in America illegally will be held responsible. As of 6 PM, the Trump administration had been blocked by the courts from flood-the-field assaults on elections.
- Nov 3, 2026Sherman Austin, creator of the crowdsourced tracking site StopICE.net, said Election Day saw "the least amount of activity observed from ICE ERO throughout the entire year so far," with the usual 5 a.m.-10 a.m. spike absent.
- Nov 4, 2026The Intercept reported that ICE was secretly ordered to halt all immigration enforcement operations on Election Day, per ICE officials in four areas of responsibility covering parts of the northeastern, midwestern, northern and south-central U.S.
Key terms
- ICE
- Federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security that enforces immigration and customs laws.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Official
- ICE publicly warned that anyone who votes in America illegally will be held responsible.
- Party
- An ICE immigration official in the south, speaking anonymously, said "we were told all operations are canceled for Election Day," relayed by word of mouth from first-line supervisors with no official email notice.
- Party
- An ICE official in the Great Lakes region, speaking anonymously, called the orders "National No Enforcement Day" and said deportation officers were told to do "admin" work instead.
- Analysts
- Sherman Austin of StopICE.net said Election Day saw "the least amount of activity observed from ICE ERO throughout the entire year so far."
Still unverified
The existence and scope of the stand-down orders rest on anonymous ICE officials speaking to The Intercept; no official email notice was cited, only verbal commands and group chats.