This isn't particularly a new argument. People have been warning for months that President Donald Trump is going to dispatch ICE agents to polling places to scare away voters, to which most people reply: why would citizens be scared away from the polls? According to the Los Angeles Times, "advocates" say that a surge in ICE raids in the Los Angeles area is aimed at discouraging voter turnout.

Melissa Gomez reports for The Los Angeles Times:

Amid reports of a surge in federal immigration raids, Los Angeles leaders and immigration advocates said Friday that the efforts appear aimed at discouraging turnout in the midterm elections, and urged voters not to be intimidated.

“The timing of these actions, just weeks before the midterm elections, is no accident,” said Jeannette Zanipatin, policy director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. “These tactics seek to silence immigrant communities, suppress civic participation and divide our neighborhoods.”

CHIRLA’s executive director, Angelica Salas, blamed the Republican Trump administration for seeking to discourage voting and said her organizations and others will send legal observers to the polls across the state as part of the Can’t Stop California campaign.

“As threats of intimidation from the Trump administration continue just 18 days before the election date, do not let anyone convince you that your voice does not matter,” Salas said at a news conference in downtown Los Angeles. “We’re protecting our people. We’re also protecting our people’s ability to participate in the elections. California organizes itself. That is why we are a progressive, pro-immigrant state.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a statement, DHS spokesperson Chandler Rebel said that people “who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.”

California is a progressive, pro-illegal alien state. Note that the Times reporter doesn't even confirm that there's been a surge in ICE raids, kicking off her story with, "Amid reports of a surge." This was just an excuse to give CHIRLA column inches.

As we reported earlier this week, The New York Times moved the goalposts yet again, from "Illegals aren't voting" to illegals aren't voting "in quantities that would come close to deciding the winners of major races."

As this editor, always check on whose behalf a media outlet is speaking: "experts say," "critics say," "the family's attorney says," and in this case, "immigration advocates say."

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If an alleged surge in ICE raids makes U.S. citizens too afraid to go to the polls, that's on them.

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