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USPS HIRES SECURITY SERVICE WITH HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE  
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Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
October 7, 2026
The New Republic
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_ Almost 1,000 armed security officers have been sent to at least 55
post office facilities. The security officers were contracted through
multinational private security company Prosegur, according to a Raw
Story investigation. _

Photo credit: WTTW News,

 

Nearly 1,000 armed guards have descended on the United States Postal
Service, deploying to at least 55 facilities across the country ahead
of Election Day.

The security officers were contracted through multinational private
security company Prosegur, according to a Raw Story investigation
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Prosegur has a history of alleged human rights violations, including
an incident as recent as 2024 in which the company’s Brazilian
subsidiary reportedly prevented indigenous people from accessing food
and medical care at a nearby town, per an assessment
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by the Ethics Council of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund.

Prosegur’s guards are currently located at USPS facilities in
Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Diego, and Tampa,
according to internal memos obtained by Raw Story.

One postal contractor that spoke with the digital outlet said she was
“alarmed” that the armed security guards were predominantly
confined to “deep blue states or swing states.”

Frank Albergo, the executive director of the Postal Police Officers
Association union, said that the armed guards were deployed at
facilities with more than 1,000 employees.

“No one from the postal service will be supervising these armed
guards. It will be completely a private contractor who controls these
armed guards, so you basically have private contractors in and around
ballots without any federal control. To me, that’s crazy,” Albergo
told Raw Story.

“It just could be a red flag. Will it have an impact on the
election? Who knows? But you certainly could argue that it has an
effect,” Albergo continued. “It might give Trump an excuse to call
into question the integrity of the election. That’s the problem.
It’s the perception of it.”

Cathy K. Purcell, a senior public relations representative for USPS,
told _The New Republic_ Thursday that the introduction of armed guards
at its facilities “has absolutely nothing to do with elections.”
She noted that the deployments have been “ongoing since last
year.”

“These guards are deployed to provide security and act as a
deterrent to criminals or employees who may wish to compromise the
mailstream or potentially harm the people inside our facilities,”
Purcell wrote in a statement. “Our use of armed and unarmed guards
at these key government facilities is consistent with the use of armed
and unarmed guards at other critical local, state, and federal
government buildings such as hospitals and schools.”

Yet those with knowledge of Prosegur and its practices are still
suspicious. Mark Ungar, a political science professor at the John Jay
School of Criminal Justice in New York who has researched private
security firms such as Prosegur, suggested to Raw Story that the
company’s presence could afford the Trump administration a
retroactive alibi.

“The Trump administration is clearly taking every step they can to
control voting, and they’re going to use the Postal Service to do
that,” Ungar said. “Any contract with Prosegur, any way that
removes accountability from the American people of the Postal Service,
which they’re already doing, I think, is concerning at the very
least.”

Since the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump has repeatedly argued
that the Postal Service should be dismantled to prevent mail-in
voting—a practice that he has repeatedly accused of fraud despite
zero evidence and his own apparent preference
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to vote by mail.

The Supreme Court buoyed one of Trump’s more aggressive voter
suppression efforts in August, permitting the White House to move
forward with new mail-in voting requirements and an executive order
that transferred control of the mail-in voting process to “Trump
lackey
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(according to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold) Postmaster
General David Steiner.

The judiciary decided the following month, however, that the new
requirements would not affect the 2026 midterm cycle, effectively
thwarting Trump’s eleventh-hour attempt to create a conservative
edge in the race to control Washington.

Yet Steiner has already attempted to flex the power of his position.
On Wednesday, Steiner informed
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the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that,
under a new rule, the USPS would not offer ballot services to states
that refused to hand over their voter rolls to the Trump
administration.

Meanwhile, the president promoted
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mail-in voting to his supporters on Monday, urging them to cast their
ballot however possible, briefly reversing course on his performative
opposition to mail-in voting in the face of what looks like it will be
a blue tsunami next month.

_[__ELLIE QUINLAN HOUGHTALING_ [[link removed]]_
is an associate writer covering breaking news at The New Republic. Her
work has also appeared in The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Gothamist and
The Real Deal.]_ 

* USPS
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* Postal Service
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* Post Office
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* US Post Office
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* ICE
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* Private security
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* Prosegu
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* MAGA
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* GOP
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* Donald Trump
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* Elections 2026
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* 2026 Midterms
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* mail voting
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* Election Defense
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* election integrity
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* Election interference
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