WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and members of his administration have threatened arrests and prosecution against officials who resist carrying out the administration’s agenda, with those threats recently shifting toward immigration enforcement and election security, according to Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
In 2016, Trump used the phrase and popular chant “Lock her up” during his campaign to target his political opponent at the time, Hillary Clinton.
In January 2021, in a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump indicated that when Raffensperger refused to “find thousands of votes” for Trump, he was committing a criminal offense.
Since his return to office, the Trump administration has allegedly threatened prosecution and accused individuals of criminal offenses when they oppose or stand in the way of the administration’s policies. These threats have extended beyond political opponents to numerous government officials.
Published by Verdict, a website of legal analysis and commentary, Sarat’s article, “Trump’s Arresting State,” discusses the numerous threats of arrest that have been made by the Trump administration. Sarat said, “In his administration, arrest threats are now a regular part of the policy process.”
On Friday, July 17, Secretary of Homeland Security Markayne Mullin threatened local election officials with jail time if they did not participate in Trump’s plan to nationalize control of elections as well as remove individuals from voter rolls.
This warning was made by Mullin during the president’s White House address on election security.
Mullin stated that individuals and officials who do not ensure election security would be faced with fines, penalties and, “depending on how far it goes, prison time.”
While these threats targeted those who stood in the way of the administration’s goal of nationalizing control of elections, the Constitution gives states the authority to run and control elections.
“The president cannot abide by that,” Sarat said.
“As is typical in autocratic regimes, rival centers of power must be brought to heel, whether by persuasion or coercion,” Sarat said.
Hannah Dugan, a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, was arrested, convicted and resigned from the bench after she was charged with interfering in an arrest made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Dugan’s lawyers argued that the arrest was made to “crush” Dugan in an attempt to make sure judges complied with ICE targeting immigrants as they showed up to their court hearings.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver were both arrested in May 2025 for attempting to gain access to an ICE detention center in order to inspect the conditions of the establishment.
Protect Democracy is a nonprofit, cross-ideological group focused on “defeating the authoritarian threat.” Protect Democracy argued that these threats and arrests could be considered a form of harassment.
“Legal proceedings are emotionally taxing, time consuming, stressful for families, and expensive,” Protect Democracy said.
The New Yorker is a multiplatform publication known worldwide for its reporting. The New Yorker commented on the threats, arguing, “The administration’s political calculus seems aimed at punishing and intimidating Democrats who challenge the President’s agenda.”
Sarat also claimed that these individuals were arrested for protesting the policies of Trump’s administration.
Last July, “the Justice Department began to consider arrest to advance the president’s election security agenda,” Sarat said.
The New York Times, a journalism platform whose mission is to “seek the truth and understand the world,” said using criminal charges against election officials in this fashion put “the Justice Department and the threat of criminalization into the election system in a way that has never been done before.”
On July 7, 2026, election officials in all 50 states received a letter from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon threatening prosecution if any officials allowed noncitizens on the list of eligible voters.
Sarat said the letter had an “ominous warning about criminal liability” that attempted to gain state participation in the administration’s goals surrounding the control of elections.
While many of the administration’s tactics have been rejected by courts, some states have complied with the directives and “denounced activist judges.”
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