Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed Tuesday that immigration agents could deploy to polling locations during November's midterms under certain circumstances, offering the administration's most specific comments yet on a scenario Democrats have warned could intimidate voters.

Speaking to reporters in New York City, Mullin said Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not be patrolling polling places generally, but acknowledged agents could appear if they were responding to a specific threat or serving an active warrant, Politico reported. That distinction matters because election officials typically rely on clear, public rules around who can be on site, and any uncertainty around federal law-enforcement activity can quickly become part of the turnout debate in tightly contested races.

"The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we're serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down," Mullin said.

His remarks echoed what Mullin told senators during his March confirmation hearing, when Democrats pressed him on the same issue. The Department of Homeland Security reinforced that message in a follow-up statement, saying the agency is not planning operations specifically targeting polling locations, but that arrests tied to active public safety threats could still happen there.

Democrats have spent months warning about the possibility after Trump allies raised the idea of deploying ICE to polling sites. They have argued the tactic could be used to intimidate voters in states with competitive House, Senate and governor's races this fall. A federal judge also criticized the agency for refusing to be transparent about its plans to operate at polling sites.

While the administration has downplayed any coordinated effort, DHS has already devoted significant resources to scrutinizing state voter rolls for noncitizens, and Mullin described the scope of that work last month.

"We will scrub all election records, looking for illegal aliens and those who are ineligible to vote, including those that somehow voted, yet they were deceased," Mullin said in July.

With Mullin's latest comments leaving open the possibility of warrant-based ICE activity near polling sites, and no formal policy ruling it out entirely, voting rights advocates say the ambiguity itself could be enough to discourage lawful citizens in immigrant communities from turning out this November.