Agents Seek to Dissolve ICE in Immigration Policy Backlash

It looks as though they do some good work. No wonder they would like to distance themselves from the thugs.

This is just history repeating itself. Immigration enforcement has been a political hot potato for over 100 years and no agency ever wants it on their books. A quick review of Wikipedia will enlighten you. 1891 - Immigration Act gives the Department of Treasury authority to enforce immigration laws. In 1903, that authority is moved to Department of Commerce & Labor. In 1933, Labor launches immigration enforcement and the INS is formed. For the next 70 years INS chugs along as a federal agency. The butt of a few jokes, the catalyst of unexpected love in Hollywood romantic comedies, and with only a few real political hiccups. Some of those as little as Janet Reno vs Elian Gonzalez, and others as nasty as being the entity that was responsible for running Japanese-American internment camps during WWII. So you can imagine, in the wake of 9/11, when GW Bush was looking to round up people as quickly as possible, what better tool to use than immigration authority. Civil detention, administrative arrests, expedited removal, these are all procedures outside of criminal law and exempt tradition due process. The tragedy is that rather than fix the system the government keeps rebranding agencies and kicking the immigrants on can down the road.

Clear-cut agency responsibilities may help in the future, but I'm concerned at the moment about what is happening to asylum seekers already in the country. They don't belong in prison-like detention centers. There are more humane and less costly alternatives while they await adjudication. Can Homeland Security reshape agencies that don't have clear procedures now? I'm not sure.

The Department of Homeland Security is a post-911 Frankenstein monster cobbled together out of fear and chaos, which has quickly grown way too big for its britches. DHS exists principally to foment fear in communities in order to funnel money to government contractors, whose time and talents would be better put to use fixing roads and bridges rather than militarizing the interior of the United States. Bleating "national security" doesn't make ICE indispensable, only more self-important. ICE has got to go.

Most of the reportage I've read, even from those "tough on border security," suggests the biggest problem is incompetent planning, coordination, communication at the highest levels. Why would cutting off the head of this Hydra not simply spawn 9 more heads, each as pernicious as the original, to take its place?

Someone should inform these insubordinate bureaucrats that HSI has no independence from the head of the Executive branch. All executive power rests with the President and his powers, his policies are what subordinates implement.

Regrettably, as long as illegal aliens are poring over our borders, we wii need ICE. The Founders determined that we would need actual borders if we wanted a democracy. These new groups of illegals have no right to dictate to us what our country looks like. The must be sent back immediately. We must protect our way of life from out of control illegal immigration.

Its good to know that some in ICE have insight and sense of responsibility. American people should strongly object to the use of ICE by Trump as his private army to enforce his person agenda to please his base and the extreme right wing group.

This is a really confusing article. Part of the confusion arises from different terminology used--does "dissolve" ICE mean to "break up" into smaller units as much of the article implies, or does it mean to "abolish" as the article says some Democratic legislators and others are demanding? The other part of the confusion arises from casual mention of different units within ICE. It seems to be a much larger and more diverse agency than most of us realized. More information is needed, please. What, exactly, are the units within ICE and what are their duties? And what are the specifics of the proposals being considered? And who is considering them?

It's grate that these officers have the integrity to know when something is morally wrong, and that the true cause of all this is every president since Ronald Reagan, who gave amnesty to some million people, with the promise of a path to citizenship. And every president has said the same thing, Obama made Spanish speaking ads asking for their vote, only to renege on the promise. One could argue that since the GOP was effectively the party of no for 6 years, which compounded the issue. Really, it's about votes, and getting the "untapped" Hispanic vote, then doing nothing to create a path to citizenship. All while using immigration as a means of getting elected, either by appealing to Hispanics or by like Trump, appealing to racists that are easily led by lies, and distortions. The biggest lie and distortion is immigrants collect vast amounts of welfare. Nothing could be further from the truth, the fact is, they don't. The biggest recipients of welfare, are poor whites in red states, that is a statistical fact. And let's not forget the hundreds of millions they pay in state, city, local taxes, they pay in far more than they get out. Now the GOP is on the immigration war path, Trump is using that proven GOP tactic, lies. Lies to inflame his base. And ICE Trumps, modern day Gestapo. If this is what ICE is to be used for then, maybe these officers are onto something, maybe Trumps government is "over reaching" as the GOP likes to say. Either way, it's time to break up ICE.

The Republicans are committing political suicide: WE know that abortion rights are for mainly women in our poor inner city neighborhoods and poor rural districts which are a majority of brown skinned citizens. We hear Republicans in Oklahoma, texas, Alabama, and other red states that brown skinned women are having more babies than whites and that will make white's a minority in the coming years. So why are Republicans taking away abortion rights and access to contraceptives to the inner cities and rural communities? It makes no sense....especially when we know that many of these are single women who know they can't afford to raise a kid and Republicans will never fund social programs to help those kids who end up in prison because their mothers really didn't want them....so the parenting was poo as you would expect. Meanwhile rich white women have all the access they need to an abortion or contraceptives. Republicans are committing suicide!

It is high time to dissolve this illegal department at tax payer's expense. This country does not belong to anybody, unlike any other country. An individual who claims to be an "American" is a descendent of early European settlor. Being "Born here" is an excuse to legitimize these individuals. If a person not having a background like Hitler and he/ she is in the shore of this land, should be allowed to live here. The old definition of 'American" being an Anglo Saxon White is dead. Being "Born Here" is dead. You set your foot here and play by the rules....this is your country. No ifs and or buts.

It troubles me when liberals choose radical paths instead of practical ones. We can't abolish ICE. There are problems at the border, and if Americans are truly losing jobs to illegals (which is open for debate), that needs to be addressed. Border protection is a fact, and if we abolish ICE then another agency will form with a different name. Breaking the agency in two, investigative vs. border control, seems like a great idea to me. What needs to be abolished is the horrific treatment of people who have come to us for a better life.

I applaud Ice for doing a very difficult, thankless job. I don't understand the bad rap that ICE is receiving for seeking out and deporting immigrants who entered our country 'illegally". They are not targeting and deporting individuals who respected and obeyed our laws, by entering our country through the court system. I do think it's horrible that families are separated when caught entering our country illegally - but at the same time - immigrants need to stop sneaking over our borders and assuming because they made it ashore - they're home free with all rights and privileges afforded US citizens. There are 12 million illegal immigrants in our country today - and everyday - more immigrants try to out fox border patrol. Hats off to ICE for doing the job they were hired to do.

Because Republicans are unable to get past "they're here illegally" the law enforcement officers in this agency are stuck with an untenable job. If Repubs could only see that cooperating with Democrats in creating a path to citizenship for those here now while simultaneously tightening the border would bring America together and would be fair to all. The path to citizenship would eventually find any with outstanding felony warrants, which seems to be a huge deal for Repubs. If there was a timeline, like filing for citizenship within 2 years, it would get this done & might satisfy both parties.

Is it really necessary to use the term "illegal immigrant"? It's inaccurate and dehumanizing. There's no such thing as an illegal person. People commit illegal actions.

With our Administration's present appreciation of those who offer constructive criticism of such ill-advised and partisan efforts like "zero tolerance", my only question is how long before these brave men and women are reassigned from fighting crime to emptying waste paper baskets and buying new mattresses for Scott Pruitt?

As a front line employee of one of the largest state agencies in my state, knew the creation of DHS was a horrible, horrible mistake when it happened. Does one entity in DHS work better than the agency it subsumed & mashed up with some other agency? Just undo it & go back to the way it was.

It appears that a major problem is that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers think they're in the FBI. That Trump "has limited their ability to pursue national security threats, child pornography and transnational crime." suggests that they are rogue wanna be's, not people with a very clear, narrowly defined task. These officers should be suspended while investigated for abuses, not cheered by the NY Times.

Trump's whole immigration policy, if you can call it that, has resulted in more waste of taxpayer dollars, waste of people's time and energy, and a full-blown crisis for anyone involved. The worst of it is, in addition to the human tragedy playing out the borders, is that in his efforts to keep out "undesirables" Trump has unwittingly created more security issues for the US, as this article indicates. What a first-class mess...and Trump just walks away from this one and onto the next disaster that will be of his making. So if we do have another act of terrorism, Trump will blame it on the Democrats. He will dodge his responsibility for undermining what existing resources we already have to combat real threats, rather than the perceived threats of innocent asylum seekers.

Instead of stopping drugs and human trafficking Trump is using ICE to enact state sponsored terrorism. This puts our border in jeopardy and destroys innocent lives, which makes this policy a threat to the values and people of our nation.

I'm sure trump will give the subject letter thoughtful consideration. Just kidding. He'll probably fire the agents who signed it (whether or not he actually has that power) -- but whatever stupid thing he does or tries, one thing is for certain: He will have the full, self-humiliating support of Homan, Nielsen and all of the R's on whatever congressional committees have I.C.E. in their 'books.'

When Immigration agents themselves speak out against their efforts being misdirected away from heinous crimes to focus on misdemeanors, you know there is something intrinsically wrong-headed with the current Administration under Donald Trump. In the current culture of Trump; i.e. leakers are considered traitors, this took a lot of courage to be heard.

19 agents, or less than 0.1% of the force. That will dissolve all of ICE for sure.

Scott Adams has this covered on his Periscope this morning. He pointed out, that institutionally, getting rid of a department always means renaming it. The consensus of his Periscope audience was that ICE should simply be renamed to NICE since nobody hates nice.

We could also get rid of the FBI, CIA, ATF as well. Heck, let's par-tee.

Watch out! These agents are stating a fact which has been brought up before within the context of where to allocate manpower. Facts are the enemy of this current administration. FOX News will lay the groundwork to label these agents as treasonous, liberal, open border haters of America. President Trump will run with it from there.

With the merger with Immigration, the Customs Services' investigative focus on transnational crime was overwhelmed by immigration issues and the lack of effective management found within INS. From being one the of more professional and better investigative organizations in the federal government, they have had to constantly do battle with the DHS immigration focus to prevent a defacto deterioration of transnational criminal investigations - much to the detriment of national security.

I would pay $1000 of my own money that I don't even have (would take out a loan) to help with the transaction costs of completely dismantling Dick Cheney's ICE and starting over. Everyone would be free to re-apply for their old jobs and many would be competitive... I assume.

I know this is kind of an evidence based idea, which those currently in power will disdain, but it seems to me that knowing what the problems are and who and where they are coming from should come before rushing out to "fix" the problems. The investigations group should be independent of the enforcement group, and it should have the highest priority.

Not only should ICE be abolished, its acting director Homan should be fired. His performance in recent TV interviews was less than reassuring, displaying not only a staggering lack of empathy for asylum seekers but also staggering incompetence in someone tasked with protecting the security of our homeland.