ICE Fear Backfires as Latino Voters Storm the Polls

The crackdown was supposed to scare Latino voters away from the polls. Instead, it lit a fire under them. More than 57 million people had voted early by Monday afternoon, according to data from the University of Florida's Election Lab — 10 million more than the entire early-voting total from the 2022 midterms, with Latino communities claiming a bigger slice of the pie in state after state.

Texas tells the story loudest. Organizer Michael Mireles of LUPE Votes, a get-out-the-vote group in southern Texas, told WIRED that fear of ICE showing up at polling sites isn't keeping anyone home. More than 400,000 Texans who sat out 2024 have already cast ballots, and Democratic strategist Tom Bonier says half of them are Latino. Nationwide, TargetSmart counted 3.8 million Hispanic and Latino early voters by October 27, a leap from the 2.35 million who had voted by that date in 2022.

Michael McDonald, who runs the Election Lab, wrote that Hispanic turnout in Texas is running above even the state's blistering overall pace — a pattern he says is repeating in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. The data got backup from the League of United Latin American Citizens, which found that in Texas' 15th congressional district, over 12,000 early voters didn't show up in prior elections. Republican congresswoman Monica De La Cruz won that seat in 2022 by roughly 12,000 votes.

Organizers say they didn't sugarcoat the threat. Liliana Rivera Baiman of 614 ICE Watch and Ohio Good Neighbor Network told WIRED her message was blunt: this is the reality, these are the examples, and the choice is to vote or keep living with it. Jill Garvey of States at the Core added that communities already face-to-face with ICE surges feel a little less scared for having survived it — and know how fast escalation can come.

The ground game has been relentless. In Arizona, Living United for Change volunteers knocked thousands of doors in a single week, and spokesperson César Fierros says 1,000 people reported voting early or mailing ballots back — something the group had never seen. In Georgia's DeKalb County, the Save America Movement's Mary Corcoran said voters streamed in all day and told her team nothing would stop them. Nevada secretary of state Cisco Aguilar, facing election denier Jim Marchant for reelection, put it more colorfully, telling WIRED leaders have to get real with voters about what's at stake.

Common Cause's Suzanne Almeida says the playbook is to lean into defiance, reminding voters that the opposition wouldn't work so hard to make voting difficult if it weren't powerful. The administration has claimed it won't send ICE to polling sites, even as President Trump and officials like DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin and attorney general Todd Blanche have hinted otherwise. For now, the ballots are answering back.