We know the VA (Veterans Administration) has done horrible things that have even resulted in deaths in some cases. The answer was not and is not to ABOLISH THE VA but to remedy its problems.
15
By the author's own data a whopping 32% of adults support abolishing ICE - and I suspect the percentage would be even lower if likely voters were surveyed. The author further muddies the waters by insinuating that support for immigration reform automatically correlates to support for abolishing ICE - it doesn't. Sure, proponents of abolishing ICE can win in some liberal districts but there is no way in the world a candidate calling for that will win a national election. Have Democrats learned nothing from the victories of Conor Lamb and Doug Jones? I fear that the "we are so morally superior" smugness of the extreme left is just as odious and off-putting as that of their counterparts on the extreme right - and could easily result in a second Trump term. And when those extreme leftists look for someone to blame for that calamity they need look no further than their own mirrors.
19
Sean McElwee and everyone else living in "abolish ICE" fantasyland would do well to heed the phrase "don't hate the player hate the game".
ICE agents are doing their prescribed job which is enforcing the existing immigration laws. Don't hate them for that.
Focus your efforts on changing the laws. In other words, direct your anger towards Congress since they make the rules of "the game".
That's what they are supposed to do anyway.
14
The only reason we have mass deportation is because we have been afflicted by mass infiltration. People who want to abolish ICE, the police and the military live in a world of zero accountability.
25
As an independant voter, Trump and his fiscally runious policies and authoritarian tendencies are extrememly worrying to me. I am largley left of center person my prorities are environmental protection and income inequality.
This article is the reason why i will not vote for Democrats this cycle. Open borders is a policy that is worse than anything Trump has done so far. It has huge negative environmental effects and will turbocharge inequality.
22
If we would take the $4.5 billion a year we give Israel and Egypt, the usefulness of which is highly questionable (and I say that as a Jew), and send a large part of it instead to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras for development, the immigration problem would to a considerable extent solve itself.
7
The author says Democrats are shifting left on immigration, and then uses the idea to abolish ICE. It is not necessarily a leftist position to abolish ICE. It was created to give them extra-legal authority to chase terrorists, not to harass people. It is just commonsense to revise their legal millieu and make it appropriate to their mission. Most Democrats have a repeal and replace in mind.
1
My party has the uncanny ability to turn victory into defeat. The threat of abolishing ICE is like throwing ball right over the plate for a mediocre player to hit a Grand Slam. If I was on the otherside of the aisle and I represented people who wake up daily among people who look like them.I could run with this.Al Franken is a prime example of how my party has no middle ground. Why not fix ICE instead of torching it?
14
As someone who lives in Mark Pocan's district I find using him as example of this issue resonating outside deep blue districts ridiculous. Wisconsin's 2nd district has a D 18 rating and there will not even be a Republican running in this election. A better place to look would be the much more moderate Wisconsin 3rd district currently represented by Democrat Ron Kind who has in no way joined in the current left wing virtue signaling obsession with abolishing ICE. The reason is simple, this issue does not play outside very left wing districts. If the Democrats want to take the house they need more Ron Kind's to win and this issue is not what is going to make that happen.
8
Right. Keep at it. This slogan might be the one that gets Trump elected again.
13
so what exactly is the point of this article ? the only thing it shows is that trump is right about democrats shifting to the left on immigration and that the democratic party has become a clear and present danger to our country by supporting open borders , opposing immigration enforcement and reward people who cut in line
16
Simple thought experiment for the left:
Trump vs Conor Lamb 2020 electoral map: Trump 206 and Lamb 332 electoral votes (likely similar to 2012)
Trump vs Ocasio Cortez 2020 electoral map: Trump 483 and Ocasio Cortez 55 (California) electoral votes (similar to Reagan Mondale 1984)
If one were a subversive foreign or undermining influence, the most effective way would be to push the democrats further to the left. Amazingly, Bannon outrights states this but the democrats keep being baited. Morevover, look at Trump, when he has personal issues, he brings up immigration which brings back his base and independents and deflects away from other issues.
10
Is the Democratic Party running against ICE in November? Is ICE running for President in 2020? Keep the crosshairs on the people who are to blame for creating the cruel policies - Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
7
Well, there goes the Blue Wave. If Democrats do not strongly come out against this extremist, fringe idea immediately and withhold party support from any candidate who runs with it, we will be living in Trumpistan for another decade.
22
As always, consider the source. And don't take seriously those who take Ms. Ocasio-Cortez seriously.
8
As one who believes in the enforcement of immigration laws on the border and inside America, the upholding of American sovereignty through the maintenance of borders and what these represent: the inviolability of the American nation state -- the vehement opposition of the fringe far-left of the Democratic Party to borders and to ICE is welcome news. It is a losing proposition. I also hope the Democrats nominate Kamala Harris for President and Keith Ellison for Vice President -- two ardent enemies of the rule of law. The characterization of ICE presented in this piece is grotesque and erroneous: ICE agents fight the criminality that preys on illegal aliens, recent immigrants and US citizens; over 90 percent of those this agency arrests and puts into deportation proceedings are repeat felons. As to the unpopularity of abolishing ICE: a comprehensive, authoritative poll conducted by Harvard's Center for American Political Studies and Harris Polling shows that fully 78 percent of Americans support ICE and oppose its abolition. I hope and pray the open-borders' Democrats march into this massacre with globalist flags flying.
13
Half of Democrats? We have two parties and the GOP controls the presidency, the Senate and the House. The President won in 2016 showing open hostility to black and brown people. ICE is a federal agency that takes direction from the chief executive. Under Obama, ICE concentrated on deporting illegal alien criminals. “Abolish ICE” plays right into the GOP sweet spot of saying that liberals are soft on crime.
All too often, this is being done by carefree whites who never suffer under the racist polices put into place after the Dems lose the election. You are white and protected, so you can be silly and extreme. Trump is the problem, not ICE. Half of Dems, McElwee, says over and over and never once mentions the racist enabling 40% of total voters that will die before leaving Trump. For Dems there are two choices: try to capture the center or the extreme left. In 1992, after 12 years of GOP control of the White House, we decided on a centrist. When Bill Clinton left office, we had a government surplus and a booming economy. But the crazy ones, who were not even born then, insist on reminding us how bad he was.
Some of us are tired of giving away elections. They told us there was no difference in Hillary and Trump. I am sick of people who talk in extreme falsehoods just to justify their extreme beliefs. No different than Trump? We already have a president who deals in fantasy and falsehood. Lying liberal fantasy versions running for Congress is not my idea of progress.
6
McElwee is an illiberal leftist. He calls those who want to have immigration laws enforced "white supremacists". He cites claims of his fellow travelers that the interior enforcement of immigration laws, BTW just one function of ICE, is racist since so many of those detained and deported are "brown", without acknowledging that the vast majority of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. are "brown" people from Mexico and Central America. Nor does he mention that the same "white supremacists" preside over the process that issues green cards to mostly "brown" people. Mexicans are and have long been the largest group of green card recipients, about 180,000 per year. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are in the "top 20" of countries whose citizens are granted U.S. green cards. It is clear that McElwee and those aligned with him on this subject want to have open borders; they refuse to acknowledge, although they must know, that the failure to enforce the immigration laws in the interior will result in a repetition of the same pattern of illegal immigration, turning a blind eye to it, decade after decade, generation after generation. That is apparently the result he wants. I do not approve of the cruel and totally incompetent "zero tolerance" policy of our buffoon in chief; I support the reinstatement of DACA. What I oppose is the Dems adopting McElwee's position which will result in the party snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in 2018, just as it did in 2016.
13
The NYTimes should let over 1000 people respond with their comments and McElwee should garner each response and mark it as for or against to add to his polling research. Understood it's not perfect but polls are also far from perfect.
Granted the NYTimes does censor a lot of comments, mine included even when they are not any less "civil" than other comments I see here.
9
The problem with the immigration debate is that it is based on a mistaken idea that the majority of Americans (Liberals and Conservatives) have about Latin America. That is the fear that Latin Americans are reproducing like rabbits. They are not and people are NOT flooding over the border.
So let's see, America is and has been white supremacist and at long last that begins to change with abolishing ICE. As an independent who is hoping Trump is done in 2020, I find this depressing as the whole idea is just a gift for Trumpists that keeps giving. As if replacing one organization with another that serves the same master would accomplish anything. As if all the studies on cultural insecurities that were the primary driving forces behind Trump's rise were false, let's raise the antagonism further with sweeping negative judgement on most of its people and history. If the Democratic leadership is not strong enough to suppress the stupidity of this whole movement, they are sadly not strong enough to take back power.
10
Fact (1):“Addressing concerns about conditions for children at ICE’s family detention centers, Albence(the executive associate director or ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations) said. “With regard to the FRC’s, I think the best way to describe them is to be more like a summer camp.”
Fact (2): Two youth care workers at Arizona shelters for migrant children have been charged with sexually assaulting immigrant teenagers, according to court records. One of the workers tested H.I.V. Positive.
Fact (3): Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union show the pervasive abuse and neglect of unaccompanied immigrant children detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The report was produced in conjunction with the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School.(May 22, 2018)
Of Course ICE can be abolished. It’s Corrupt, Careless, and Incompetent. Let the ACLU determine its replacement………….
Go ahead democrats stick to your open border agenda and see where that will get you! When the number two man in the DNC wears a tee shirt supporting open borders you won’t get my vote nor anyone in my family. And we mostly voted democrat. Not now. There is middle ground on immigration for compromise but like the far right you won’t look for it. And keep branding people racist if they don’t agree with you that only pushes people away from voting democrat.
17
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we just find out that Russia has been caught pushing the "Abolish ICE" agenda on social media? Does the author account for that in his observation of it being mentioned more and more since the beginning of the year? You really can't be this ignorant if you actually want to win elections.
10
The "abolish ICE" message is a gift to the GOP. They can easily use it to whip up fear in their base and get them to come out in droves at the election. You feed straight into the doomsday fear of "open borders" and an "invasion" as "billions" of poor people from all over the world seek access to our country and government welfare. Yes that is stupid and not what democrats are actually advocating, but it is a message of fear that is easy to sell to Fox viewers. The actual message should be "reform ICE".
10
Great article. Thank you.
Of course ICE should be abolished. It's a secret police, a gestapo, that mercilessly grabs people off the street, out of their workplaces, out of churches and courtrooms, and whisks them off without even a change of clothes or a farewell to their families.
ICE agents are ruthless and anything but compassionate. It's a job, and they "are just following orders."
But will the Democrats get behind candidates calling for its abolition? This is the party that can't get it together to support more than lip service to progressivism in its candidates. The party whose DINOs helped to confirm Gorsuch and now will do the same with Kavanaugh. The same DINOs plus even more who just voted with the Republicans to increase the military budget.
Abolishing ICE is a good liberal rallying cry, but not all on the left support it, and, besides, more than their votes are needed to win elections. Jobs, pay, healthcare, retirement, education. These are what people vote for — at least those who are not hopelessly blinded by racism and always vote more to support their bigotry than their own economic interests.
So "Abolish ICE" is not likely to win elections. And neither are mainstream Democrats. A progressive, pro-working class platform eludes the Democratic Party. So will the voters, if they don't get their act together.
1
ICE is about as useful as the TSA, but a lot more damaging and prone to excess and abuse. Of course, if you are fine with Kidnapping Children, it’s probably your favorite agency. May your God have mercy on your soul, because I surely don’t. But that’s just me. ICE: the BEST federal agency. For deplorables.
PERIOD.
2
Did anyone notice that a man in Fort Worth Texas was given a life sentence for child sex trafficking last Monday? An ICE investigation led to the conviction.
Also, on July 25 a Delaware man was convicted and sentenced for child pornography. Two Missouri men were sentenced in July for child exploitation. Guess whose investigatios led to these convictions? ICE would be the correct answer.
I'm sure the victims of these crimes and their families do not want ICE abolished.
I support these victims. They did nothing wrong, yet suffered unthinkable abuse.
If you just look past the "Hate Trump Hysteria" you will see that the border children are being well cared for considering the circumstances. Their predicament is the result of their parents illegal actions, and the parents are 100% accountable for the separations.
And who among you is willing to tell the victims of sex trafficking, exploitation and child pornography that they really don't matter because of your hatred for Trump? Like it or not, this is what you are actually saying when you call for ICE to be abolished.
16
Abolish ICE is similar to occupy Wall Street. A bunch of liberals who do want to make up grown up decisions. Abolish ICE and do what, open borders, let anyone who crosses the border stay here. Who pays for their kids education, trips to ER and every other cost imaginable. If Democrats can’t answer these basic questions then they have no business running this country.
14
Ah the Uber left , adept at screaming and blocking the ice facility’s but, lacking any type of concrete real policies that are realistic. “
Abolish ice” another great phrase that is hollow. What are your answers to immigration? Open borders? , how about security,none? Who will pay for the torrents of unskilled labor that would flood the country and are here now?. Ice deports .0001 percent of the estimated 22 plus illegals in this country. It’s all sound bytes and bluster but no real actual solutions.
12
How is abolishing Ice a Left position?
It used to be that the Left was for the working class & the lower classes.
Now the Left refuses to see class as oppressed; they've shifted their definition of oppression. It is no longer economic but instead is race. It is thus immutable. You are always oppressed as a condition of your being; if you are straight white men, you are always the oppressor. You are born sinful.It is a quasi religious outlook in which personal agency plays no role against the forces of the Oppressors,the 'other.'
Framed within this is the erasure of very real social class. White working class men are Oppressors every bit as much as Wall Street billionaires. Thus, illegal immigrants are Oppressed because they are Brown & their cause is more important than White working & middle classes.
This ideology appeals particularly to students with no working experience & to the upper class who want to feel virtuous without having to change a thing in their lives. They only have to confess their Sin & beat their breast & Tweet & then they can continue to send their kids to privates & Ivies & reap the benefits of upper class cronyism & yes, hire illegal immigrants as cheap nannies & maids.
The call to abolish Ice is part of this new massively egocentric religious-without-God, smug & contemptuous upper class/intelligentsia Left that cares not a whit for the working & middle classes. If the Dems embrace this, the Republicans will win.
17
Fine stirring words. And politically dumb.
You might take a look at Italy 2018 for a very clear example of how far-right governments get elected when immigration is a central campaign issue.
8
Thought we’d learned these lessons with the TEA Party. Winning a primary is one thing, winning a general election is a different proposition.
The Dems messed up in 2016 running Hillary and against Trump. Dalliance with the lunatic left is setting them up once more for failure.
We need a Dem president and control of the Congress so bad, hope we don’t blow it on feel good chants and over hyped socialists.
3
Apparently, the new Democratic ideal is to abolish the nation-state. Just imagine a world without borders!
Well, we know how well that worked when the wandering hoards destroyed the Roman Empire and led to the dark Ages.
9
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is like the Pied-Piper leading Democrats farther and farther away from Mid-Term victory.
Maybe the "Blue Wave" is actually the cold embrace of the Weser.
5
Do leftists really think
No borders
No nations
Stop the deportations
Is going to win elections outside of Berkeley and Brooklyn?
15
There are approximately 6 BILLION people living in poor, overpopulated, often violent third world countries who want to migrate to first world countries, particularly the United States...land of milk and honey?
... as if jobs for unskilled labor and cheap housing were plentiful here.
... as if our urban centers weren’t already overcrowded and violent.
... as if our water and energy resources weren't already strained.
... as if the quality of life of our own citizenry wasn’t spiraling progressively downward.
... as if the cacophony of competing interests and cultures wasn’t already tearing apart our nation’s unity.
Some of us...even moderate liberals like ourselves... have had enough of illegal immigrants and their Leftist cheerleaders...and will be voting accordingly in November.
10
Why stop with ICE? Why not just get rid of all laws, then there wouldn't be any crime at all. . . .
10
Our immigration system is working just fine. Trump is just trying to pull the Democrats into his racist debate. You can't argue with racists, you can only defeat them at the ballot box.
Abolish ICE?
Enough already. We need a new party. I know - let's call it the "Democratic Party." The socialists left behind can call themselves whatever they want.
6
"Compassion" seriously??! This is another reason blacks are beginning to leave the Democratic party. We currently have 2.5 million homeless children in our nation, not to mention ailing veterans and people of color that need help in their communities, yet Democrats continue to focus on assisting people that are clearly here illegally. Before we extend our generosity, we need to make sure our own house is in order.
19
Enough with left vs. right! How about right vs. wrong instead?
We've lost our moral compass down the Trump black hole.
"Abolish ICE" is, as is typical, a breathtakingly stupid mantra to animate the Left. Any sensible person looks at that and says, "oh, the Left is for open borders." You can whine all you want that that's not what you meant, but it's pretty much what you said. And sure it can sometimes be effective in the primary. But thinking it will win in the general is the kind of thinking that keeps losing elections for the Left.
15
Democrats are making themselves radioactive by relentlessly attacking the ties that bind ordinary people - nationhood and borders ("Facism!", "Racism!"), the family ("Misogynistic!", "Patriarchy!"), the biological genders ("Oppressive!"), Christianity ("Bible thumping!"), etc. etc. This is an interesting experiment - how far can you deconstruct a society from all that matters to it, until anything is left, or until people start snapping back?
10
The comments from "Dems" who support ICE really just shows how right wing this country has become. Most of these people are hard-working, productive members of society who have families. Some have never even been to their "home" country and barely speak the language. We already have border patrol and police (and plenty of federal agencies) to deal with real criminals. If this is what pushes you over to the fascists, you already had one foot over there.
1
Abolish ICE and border security may doom the Democrats midterm. They can not control themselves.
8
We don't need to abolish ICE, we just need to abolish Trump and the racism that clings to him like his bad suits.
As a Republican, I do hope that the Democrats keep on pushing their extremist open-borders antics. This is likely to ensure Republican victories. Most Americans are sick and tired of the open-borders fanatics.
7
The open borders, abolish ICE wing of the Democratic party would be wise to read this comment section. The majority reliably liberal commenters and equally liberal recommenders don't seem to be buying what the author is selling. And when a liberal idea gets shot down hard by NYT readers you really must consider whether you have jumped the shark.
20
According to a Pew poll in late June, the number 1 issue both Republicans and Democrats (and Independents who lean toward either party) want candidates to talk about in state or district elections this fall is immigration.
Immigration is ahead of healthcare, education, the economy, jobs, guns, taxes, and racism.
The Democrats have got to come up with something besides "abolish ICE."
26
Even Canada and Europe deport illegal immigrants. I do not believe in separating children from their families or some of Trump’s other immigration policies, however, I do not believe that it is prudent not to have a government agency in charge of immigration enforcement.
17
This is typical astoundingly dishonest identity politics nonsense aided and abetted and given not only cover by active support by the Times.
Give us the “polls” that abolish ICE is a winning strategy to regaining the three branches of the federal government. There are no such pills. The claim to the contrary is a lie.
But the “polls” show the majority of Americans have lonnnngggg favored a path to citizenship for DACA and others. Even republican pluralities.
But liars don’t tell the truth.
6
Concentrating on immigrants, would-be citizens, incoming refugees, while ignoring the working people who are already citizens of this land is abominably, abysmally stupid. And will lose those of us who hate this administration's cruelty and stupidity the chance to make a change. Look at the people around you (unless you live in a cocoon) and see what the "deplorables" want and need before you leap on this bandwagon. As an elder on a very limited income, I am a "deplorable," albeit one with a far left bent. I believe ICE is criminal in many of its activities and I'd love to see it abolished. But I am NOT voting on that issue, ever. I am voting on health care, jobs, education, and, in short, decency.
24
Illegal Immigration is what it is Illegal. It is not undocumented immigration it is illegal immigration. A nation without borders is not a Nation. ICE is for enforcement of laws. Unchecked illegal Immigration will import the Gangs, human exploration,drugs and corruption that is Mexico. Democrats want votes, illegal doesn't matter as long as they can get power back.
32
Of all the issues on the table, at this point in time, #abolishice is supposed to be the rallying cry of the Democratic Party?
I actually googled "who started #abolishice" at one point because I was so incredibly frustrated (yes, am a Dem and would like to win) and all sources to point to McElwee himself. So, if McElwee is wrong in this little betting game of his, does he suffer from the consequences if all goes awry?
Yes, I understand that ICE is recent and blah blah blah but those nuances are not represented by #abolishice. And, since the Dems haven't articulated a clear policy, this is a defenseless and numbskull move.
Personally, this issue isn't even in my priority of issues that I want Dems to address. If it were, I would absolutely want to enforce our borders and yes, I do believe people in this country illegally are subject to removal. At this point, when I think about the Supreme Court, I could spit. A wide array of issues I care about are in danger and so the focus on this particular issue irritates me to no end. As a voter (and someone who gave pretty decent sums politically in the past), I will not coddle McElwee or his ilk (yes, I am older than McElwee but much younger than a boomer). My friends and I have all had conversations about this and let me assure you, I'm not the only one that feels this way. If a new Dem Party arises and I am pushed out, I am prepared for that. Bring it.
20
Democrats pushing to “abolish ICE” have be manipulated by Russian propaganda ads on Facebook.
15
Everyone needs to know the history of where ICE came from before making up their minds.
In 2002, after 911 congress under President George W Bush created the Dept of Homeland Security which absorbed 22 other federal agencies.
From great article by Katie McDonough This is ICE 2/2/18
“What before had been INS Immigration and Naturalization Services under the Justice Dept and US Customs and Border Protection [became] ICE, US Citizenship and Immigration Svcs, and US Customs and Border Protection...to place Immigration, which had been under the Dept of Justice, into this new agency calked Homelands Security...sends the message that immigration was a threat...that all immigration was a threat...Tom Ridge, the first director of DHS had overseen the rollout of a strategic plan for these newly established enforcement agencies. One goal among others? A 100 percent removal rate of “removable aliens”...By 2013 the United States was spending more money on immigration enforcement than all other federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined;”
NYT: background is important, definition of terms is important.
1
Mr. McElwee is my favorite type of Democratic strategist: deluded that his radical views, supported by skewed poll questions that disguise true agendas, will prevail with the American people. In reality, the citizenry has demonstrated in elections (note the minority status of the Democrats) and accurately worded polls that current levels of immigration are too high and that illegal aliens are a problem. If you substitute "amnesty" for "path to citizenship" poll results change markedly. Add "Open Borders" (the true left wing objective) to "Abolish ICE" and support drops even more. Most of the support for illegals for rank and file Democrats nowadays is Trump Derangement Syndrome based: anything Trump is for, they are against, even gangs like MS-13. I understand that. But this mass psychosis allows radicals like Ocasio-Cortez and McElwee to gain traction. In this way the seeds of the next Democratic collapse are being planted
33
Once again, Democrats are queuing up another loss at the polls. Trragic, since the Republicans are such an awful bunch to be leading the country.
10
“Abolish ICE!” will rack up the D votes in MA, NY, CA and similar lefties bastions.
But to most Americans in most of the rest of the country it is a rallying cry to defend the borders and vote to save the country.
There are already OVER ELEVEN MILLION PEOPLE HERE ILLEGALLY.
How many more people should be allowed in in violation of borders and laws? 100 million? 500 million? A billion?
Please keep saying “Abolish ICE!” as often as you can. It reminds the rest of us why you can’t be trusted to protect and defend the USA.
28
Abolishing ICE does not mean open borders. We will first regain control of this country on November and then begin the arduous task of educating the un-American Trump base on the basics of human rights.
@ForgetPolitics. Foreign nationals do not have the right to infiltrate sovereign nations and subvert their laws.
1
There are many who believe that Leftist democrats are attempting to increase their voter base by any means possible. Their ‘Abolish ICE’ and sanctuary cities’ platforms...not to mention the recent hysteria around the issues of illegal minors and deportations...support, rather than discredit, that viewpoint.
20
Wait, how many Democrats voted for Ocasio-Cortez? Was it 20,000 or 25,000? NYT columnists love to poo-poo Trump for having a "mere" 20% of a country of 360-odd million, but delight in promoting Ocasio-Cortez as a new national leader of Democratic politics.
Yes, most Americans would like the immigration system sorted out -- with an end to inhumane enforcement practices. This does not mean they are in favor of the pendulum swinging all the way over to the left on the issue. Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, again.
Besides, the winning issue for 2018 and 2020 is healthcare. The Democrats need clear, strong messaging on this, including on reducing prescription drug pricing, protecting pre-existing condition coverage and moderating health insurance increases. These are all aspects of healthcare for which there are immediate remedies supported by most Americans, and supposedly supported by most Democratic politicians. Win first, then debate immigration policy fixes. Or scare away centrists and lose again.
11
Apprehend, Detain, and Deport ALL illegal border crossers.
Build the wall.
Support ICE.
27
The worst part of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's abolish ICE political agenda is her name. The last thing people want is a south of the border sounding name promoting open borders. Not prudent.
Keep pushing this one NYT and guarantee/Trump GOP victory.
27
@LL Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, much like President Trump, has a strained relationship with honesty and truth.
3
Can't wait for November to come. This "Abolish ICE" thing is going to back fire on the Democrats. They have become the party of lawlessness, disorder and socialism. That may play well with the illegals but remember they don't vote.
24
It's easy to argue either for or against Immigtation and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but the fact of the matter remains that it is necessary to clamp down on illegal entry into this country -- just not in the way this current administration is going about it with its Gestapo-like tactics.
The focus should be more on illegal immigrants who actually pose a security risk, and not just randomly going after anyone who fits a specific racial profile.
As it now stands, this agency is doing nothing to make America great again, nor is it making the country any safer.
7
@N. Smith: You should tell that to the governor and AG of CA who signed on for sanctuary state policy.
One of the first acts they did was to force DHS and ICE from the prisons and jails. Effectively breaking the chain of custody between federal agencies and known criminal illegal immigrants so that instead of detention for deportation, they were released to the streets.
This has proven to be extremely dangerous and has gotten innocent people killed.
Well, the HONEST kids in class know why they did this.
Because ICE sweeps to collect these criminals, would gather up other illegal immigrants in the net, and screaming hysterical families being separated makes for incitement of all the feels for the illegal immigrant.
As if they are victims of ICE, rather than the fact that people who do something illegally, will always risk separation from their family.
That's the risk THEY signed on to.
This isn't citizen vs. immigrant.
It's law abiding vs. law breakers.
Why this is even debatable shows the moral and intellectual dishonesty evident on both sides.
6
Russians crossed "open borders' in the internet....and it appears that they did nothing any more illegal than the DNC...buying/selling dirt on other politicians and posting stupid political ads on Facebook that nobody in their right mind ever paid attention to in the first place.
5
I am old enough to remember the difference between the Vermacht and the SS. The SS which started out as thugs became politial thugs pursuing a political job. The job of ICE as it is used by the Trump-Putin regime is to spread terror. Undocumented immigrants as like Jews in Nazi occupied Europe depending on their Christian friends and neighbors to hide them from the terror raids of the racist regime. I believe in the rule of law but I also believe that there should be equality before the law, that no one should suffer the loss of freedom or property without due process and that the laws should be just.
There were the Nurenberg Laws of 1935 which stripped Jews of their rights and citizenship. Was that the rule of law? The things that Adolph Hitler and the Nazi’s did were legal because they controlled what was legal and what was not.
In cases what the government is doing is a moral affront and flat out thuggery, what are decent people supposed to do? Say the law’s the law?
Of course we need to secure our boarders and people arrested for a felony should have their immigration checked and large employers of cheap labor doing dirty jobs at low pay should be prosecuted for exploiting immigrant labor. But let’s not forget we need people to do work no one else wants to do.
As to ICE, if we keep it as a force of political thugs they should be required to dress in black uniforms with high jack boots and carrying cattle prods. Otherwise leave their job up to the FBI.
2
How about the Democrats give #eVerify, #jailillegalemployers and #increaselegalavenues a try?
16
There is probably not a Republican in the country that does not want the Democrats to campaign on the issue of abolishing ICE. Unless the electorate has changed beyond all recognition, the radical movement to abolish ICE will be taken by the general public like asking to abolish the FBI. You can bet that this issue will be prominently displayed on TV during the upcoming midterm election.
The fact is that the Dems have turned radically leftward in their antipathy for Trump, forgetting that the norm for the American electorate is either center left or more likely center right. American citizens who are not professed liberals want ICE to enforce the immigration laws that Congress has enacted. They see the Democrats favoring undocumented (illegal) immigrants over American citizens. Border security is still an important issue even for those who do not favor Trump.
This election should be a slam dunk for the Dems but they seem to be hell bent on losing it due to their anti-all-things-Trump fanaticism. We Americans in the middle of the political spectrum are saying "Plague on both your houses!"
13
I think "Reform ICE" would be a better slogan. The article is woefully lacking in history... yes it's "only been around since 2002" but it's not like we had "open borders" or no immigration enforcement prior to this.
Its predecessor INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) was rolled into Customs in the wake of 9/11. But the history of INS is probably more egregious in terms of enforcement abuses than ICE has been. What's changed is social media and cellphone videos, and now you're seeing what's been going for decades in this country.
Also, the men and women who work for ICE are needlessly being demonized (I work with several of them on a regular basis and can verify they are as uncomfortable with many of the family separation policies as the rest of us).
The problem is the policy, not the people enacting it. And as the old saying goes, the fish rots from the head down... your problem is the morons who set the policy in the White House and the Justice Dept (current administration and the previous ones, btw), not the agency or the people working for the agency.
You'll change the policy by winning elections. But "abolish ICE" isn't going to move anyone to your column, including center lefties or moderates.
7
Incredibly stupid for Democrats. Here we have overwhelming advantages for a landslide in November and are continually focusing on the one issue that could destroy it.
If you are trying to flip suburban House districts and want any chance of competing in middle America why would you go here? The Republican media machine will take this fringe mole hill and turn it into a mountain by Election Day. Why are we so politically naive? This is also a great way for Dems to win the popular vote in 2020 and once again lose the Electoral College.
Please stop this utter foolishness.
21
Every day the nonsense the Democrats come up with pushes me closer and closer to voting Republican.
Illegal immigrants will never get my support, period. Apparently that makes me a racist Nazi nowadays. The left has completely lost its way.
29
Please keep pushing this garbage. It will keep the Republicans in office.
21
Keep it up.
You are losing the black vote and assuring a Trump reelection with every lurch to the left.
Can you spell "Tone Deaf"?
27
Simply incredible.. Abolish Ice is a winning campaign platform???
Wow. Democrats are surely on some kind of LSD trip if they think most Americans want this.
In addition, it is yet another extension of the Victim and Sanctuary mentality of the far left.
What San Francisco needs is yet another wave of homeless and illegals, protected by their police while they poop on the sidewalks, go through 6,000,000 hypodermic needles supplied by the city, scare away tourists and conventions and infuriate the business and home owners who must live in this chaos.
27
There are approximately 6 BILLION people living in poor, overpopulated, often violent third world countries who want to migrate to first world countries, particularly the United States...land of milk and honey?
... as if jobs for unskilled labor and cheap housing were plentiful here.
... as if our urban centers weren’t already overcrowded and violent.
... as if our water and energy resources weren't already strained.
... as if the quality of life of our own citizenry wasn’t spiraling progressively downward.
... as if the cacophony of competing interests and cultures wasn’t already tearing apart our nation’s unity.
Some of us...even moderate liberals like ourselves... have had enough of illegal immigrants and their Leftist advocates...and will be voting accordingly in November.
32
The inhuman practices of family separation must be condemned. Merits and demerits of abolishing the ICE are debatable but this issue will be used by Republicans as a wedge issue to swing independents to there side. In fact Trump/ Republicans and their media will push this issue to from fringe to mainstream so that they they can use this to bludgeon the democrats in the midterm elections for supporting the " invasion" of our country by welfare moms, rapists and gang members. It will be wise and politically correct for democrats to underplay this issue at this time and deal with it when they have "real" power in their own hands.
I think it's at least interesting that a major political party would get itself bogged down in apparently trying to create the impression that it wants to abolish its nation's borders. No matter how many facts it marshals in favor of it, or however many ways it qualifies it, it still sounds to the average voter like a perverse idea. You would suppose party leaders would sense voter unease and sideline this battle for another time, but for some reason Democrats insist in fighting it now. Either they're stupid and deserve to lose the upcoming election, or they're politically perceptive geniuses, in which case we should all bow down to them. We'll find out in November.
14
This is such a tactical blunder. Do Democrats really want to lose again at the polls? The last years of the Obama seemed packed with concerns gender identity and bathrooms, and we lost touch with the majority of Americans who are more concerned about sending their kids to college or getting those high-paying jobs back. Respecting the rights of transgender people and dismantling a viscous and racist immigration system are worthy goals. But making this a big issue in the coming campaigns (2018, 2020) is foolish.
19
The power of "abolish ice" is the power of being played by Trump and losing to him.
12
"Abolish ICE"? No borders? Leftists have gone too far.
We need a rational third party.
16
@XLER
Careful. That's exactly what helped Trump to be elected in 2016.
If the Democrats lose in November, this will by why.
25
ICE is an out of control big government program. Republicans should be on the front lines of wanting to rein them in, since they hate big government. Also feel free to ignore the GOP rantings about ICE, they nothing to do with border security. We've got U.S. Customs and Border Protection to do that, and there are no "open borders", from the time President Obama was in office, illegal southern border crossings have been down 90%.
ICE doesn't protect us, they're a bunch of renegades who kick in the front doors of peaceful families and rip babies from the arms of their mothers. They seem to be unconcerned that they employ pedophiles who molest refugee children in their cages.
It's long passed time to put this 15 year old failed program out of business.
1
This kind of talk will lose the mid-terms for the Democrats. Have you considered that a lot of those enthusiastic Abolish ICE tweeters are Republican trolls or Russian operatives?
The Midwest is still waiting for the Democrats to act like they care about American workers in the Rust Belt. So far, all we hear about is the plight of illegal immigrants. Is the media trying to kill the Democratic party, or is it just the politicians themselves?
16
Bottom Line: America was doing just fine before ICE, and ICE would not have prevented 9/11 because all the hijackers were here on LEGAL visas. How many alphabet soup agencies do we need abusing people's human rights??
1
The Democrats should educate their constituency as to what ICE is vs abolishing it. This anything goes for a vote mentality is increasingly troubling. Open and or unenforced borders doesn't work.
7
"They’re trying to send every possible signal that there are people who don’t belong in this country, and it’s not people from Norway."
Did your mother teach you to talk (or reason) like that?
Let's see. Maybe the Mexico-Norway differential in deportations owes to: a) geographic contiguity; b) the much larger difference in standard of living; c) see a)a)a); d) some very exaggerated fraction of the electorate that is racist.
Your own graph at the bottom shows how lopsided the electorate remains against your position. That today's Democrats have shown momentum to abolish ICE rather commends -- that they should run on this in the general election?
So now the only way to prove one's non-racism is to embrace open borders? What of the little technicality that far more people want to come to both the U.S. and Europe than is remotely practicable?
If ICE agents are committing crimes they should be prosecuted just like everyone else. But it's understandable the average citizen will look at askance at activist claims of widespread sexual assault... (Kind of how the hardship argument of domestic violence was being coached to be pled at the border before reversal of said policy.)
One can be compassionate and have no animus toward immigrants but tire of all the endless, impractical, democracy-defying virtual signaling from the SJWs.
Check out that far-right redoubt, The Economist, for polls on how wide the consensus is for more border enforcement (not less).
19
After I read this I needed to check whether Mr. McElwee’s organization has a rightward bias. (It doesn’t.) The reason: This column imputes “Abolish ICE” with “power” but leaves unaddressed the arguments against the idea and doesn’t clarify whether it has any nuance. So I wondered if the intent was to hang a “kick me” sign on the back of the Democratic party. As I see it - and please correct me if I’m wrong - flat-out abolishing ICE would sacrifice a number of important functions. ICE is the agency responsible for all aspects of mitigating border vulnerabilities. That overall mission isn’t new or novel - the agency was just a 2002 amalgamation of previously separated functions, including those of INS and U.S. Customs, as part of the creation of the consolidated Department of Homeland Security in response to 9/11.
I think it’s naive (at best) to call for throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I’d suggest that a better call would be “Reform ICE” or “Unbundle ICE.” Yes, certain activities that this administration is perpetrating through ICE have to end. But as I understand, much of what ICE does has long been done and is unquestionably necessary. “Abolish ICE!” strikes me as similar to “MAGA!” - i.e., not particularly well-thought-through.
My source for info about ICE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement
5
Inhumane. Customs. Enforcement. Their only job, and I mean ONLY JOB, is to feed innocent children to Detention Centers.
Please don't force me to vote Republican - the thought of doing away with the border police will push me there. Abolishing ICE smells of what Trump says democrats want - Open Borders. Just look across the Atlantic and you can see what that might mean.
17
No country has open borders, and ours certainly should not, either. Most Americans welcome legal immigrants, but not illegals. US laws allow foreigners (aliens) to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally (i.e., illegal aliens) and should be detained and deported, as is policy in other countries, too.
We cannot support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is thus utterly impossible for US taxpayers to support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
The cruelty lies not in detaining and deporting illegal aliens, or separating children from parents who have broken our laws. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching adults how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, abuse, etc. Indeed, many believe that subjecting children to such an arduous journey constitutes child abuse.
Abolishing ICE makes sense only to advocates of open borders, a policy no nation will ever accept.
If open borders is made a plank of the Democratic Party we are doomed to lose the midterm and 2020 elections.
22
This is a monument to wishful thinking. “Abolish ICE” isn’t going to get anyone elected except Donald Trump. I’m still waiting for ICE to go after all the visa fraud. Or whatever agency should — it’s rampant.
13
I'm a long standing/voting Dem and would not support an "abolish ICE" plank.
reform sure. abolish...say what?
11
Abolish ICE? Sorry but I cannot get my mind around a Democratic party declaring that we eliminate an agency responsible for enforcing government policy/law. Democrats have a legacy of belief in government enforcement. The logic suggests that if EPA or OSHA were were unpopular in their application of law, that instead of renewal, reform or modifying law the agency should be abolished. Political rhetoric founded on moral outrage may be appealing to slice of the electorate. Without some kind of serious reasoning about thought process and implications, the law of unintended consequences will rear its ugly head.
12
You want to know how Democrats can win?
Look at Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign video done to Simon and Garfunkel's We've All Gone to Look for America.
That's the Democrats' MAGA.
2
Typical comments by pearl clutching Democrats, so fearful of losing that they don't deserve to win. Don't you know that the universe loves courage?
Stop being so fearful of what the Republicans might do and just do the right thing. Stand up strong and be loudly proud - make the Republicans cower.
Abolish ICE is the first real crack in the insipid "A Better Way" Democratic platform. It is a sign of strength that we won't be cowed anymore.
And ICE has nothing to do with open borders or non-enforcement of immigration. Don't get played by alt-right talking points.
Regarding job losses, that's 85% due to technology, and also outsourcing - not immigration.
ICE is a domestic paramilitary SWAT organization that operates in all states with little oversight. It's an extension of the militarization of our police-surveillance state that was created after 9/11. (Do you feel safer with the military trained an equipped police in your neighborhood?)
The goal of ICE is to terrorize families and keep You in line. Since there is no undocumented immigration crisis to speak of, ICE has no other reason to exist. Have you heard of any undocumented immigrant terrorist attacks lately?
We did fine prior to ICE's formation in 2003.
This is not the season for parsing words or triangulating or white males. Be like the non-traditionalist Progressives who have recently won (supposedly against all odds) and get out of your comfort zone.
Play to win - only losers play to not lose.
4
@Fourteen "And ICE has nothing to do with open borders or non-enforcement of immigration."
Yes, of course. Just like "pro-life" organizations claim their ultimate goal isn't outlawing abortion. Problem is, they don't fool anybody with that obvious lie. The abolish ICE crowd isn't fooling anybody either.
6
Abolish Ice is a "borders don't matter", "citizenship doesn't matter" anti- american movement. There is a reason this concept is treated like poison ivy by those moderate democrats running in competitive districts - if they dare associate with it they are dead in their districts.
16
Like other Americans, I drive to work every day on roads that are overcrowded and crumbling - we need investment in infrastructure badly. My kids will soon begin the school year in a building that is over 50 years old and in desperate need of replacement. I have a medical issue I have been putting off getting treated because I am thousands of dollars away from meeting my insurance deductible. These problems are common to millions of other folks in this country. We need help from our elected officials in making inroads toward solving these issues. Yet the tone-deaf Democratic party has put illegal immigrants, "Dreamers", abolishing ice, open borders ahead of all that and placed it at the top of their campaign agenda for this fall. They think that is the winning ticket in November. No wonder Donald Trump is president, and the Republican party controls both houses of congress and state governments coast to coast. What a joke.
31
Please Democrats, I don't mind a slight shift left---supporting the bi-partisan immigration bill proposed by the Gang of 8 several years ago and increased border security---but stop talk of eliminating ICE or even laws that would grant some form of amnesty for illegals. Americans for the most part are ok with immigration in general and are generally upset with zero tolerance policies---but the public will turn on you quickly if they think we have become an open border country ---DO NOT GIVE TRUMP AN OPENING HERE.
14
Illegal immigrants should have access to a reliable registry system allowing them to stay, work, prosper, and eventually become citizens, regardless of national origin. This system does not currently exist because our gutless, ineffective, and useless legislative bodies haven't created it...they can hold on to power without taking this risk with voters. This is the real problem. Until this happens, ICE has a role in enforcing the law, and should be left alone. The left must attack this issue in Congress, not by intimidating law enforcement agents. No matter how you craft this survey, Americans will never support attacks on law enforcement when the facts are known, the left has not learned this yet.
5
Good news! Those Progressives running on an "Abolish ICE" platform should have about as much support from Independents as those who ran on a "Black Lives Matter" platform in the past. This is probably the only way that the Democrats can manage to fail to win a majority in the House in 2018.
16
@Uysses Dems haven't abandoned BLM. They will pivot back to them after the 2018 elections, and probably nominate Kamala Harris for POTUS, with open borders, "criminal justice reform" and reparations on their Platform.
5
If the democrats continue to push for open borders (subverting immigration laws, sanctuary cities, weakening border enforcement, pushing for ever more amnesties, etc) and now calling for abolishing ICE, I will, for the first time in my life, vote for a republican ( or anybody else) for president, who vows to put a stop to this. I realize, and the nyts has admitted, that immigrants are basically the only supply of new voters the democrats can count on. What they should be doing instead, is offering the American people some ideas that will improve their lives rather than telling us that wave after wave of poor, uneducated, unskilled immigrants with large families will solve all our problems. It hasn't, and it won't, time to try something new.
18
Keep on digging that hole. Opinion columns like this are a great way to elect Republicans in November. Personally, I would rather not see the Democrats make it so easy for their opponents.
14
The immigrant-bashers have yet to explain how we will find the workforce to fund Social Security and Medicare into the future. We need immigrants to come here, work and pay taxes.
That's not to say we open the border to all comers, but it certainly does not require a $25 billion wall and a racist policy that welcomes white professionals and denies everyone else.
For most people, "Abolish ICE" is a cri de coeur to moderate immigration policies and end concentration camps.
1
@Occupy Government. I have a better set of questions. How do low wage workers who can barely support themselves pay for Medicare and SS? Ex 2 wage earners, 12.5$/hr ( much higher than minimum wage), grosses pay ~ 50,000/ year, 3 kids, cost per kid 12,000/ year public education. This doesn't include healthcare (which they likely qualify for Medicaid, another public expense) etc. These people COST the average tax payer money. They aren't even covering themselves and you think they're going to pay for your retirement?! And who's going to pay for their retirement when they likely haven't saved anything and they'll need Medicare and SS? Shall we just keep importing ever more people? When does this liberal Ponzi scheme end? If having large populations of poor people made a country better off, the places they come from would be paradise. They aren't.
4
Mr Mcelwee’s logic is fundamentally flawed. ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If it were to be eliminated, its function would simply be assumed by another Federal agency that would continue to carry out the racist, anti-immigrant policies of the current Administration.
Should we get rid of the EPA because many of it’s recent policies are harmful to the Environment? Should we get rid of the Department of Education because Betsy Devos is using it to harm rather than improve the Education of our children?
No, of course not! The solution is to work together to elect as many Democrats as possible in November and beyond, to serve as a check on (and eventually replace) the current Administration rather than propose ridiculous slogans that have been showcased by Fox News because they only make all Democrats look foolish.
3
Dems should be putting the burden on employers for immigration enforcement through supporting e-verify. Take the profit out of exploiting illegal status and discourage undocumented job seekers. Would solve half the problem.
5
The more one thinks about ICE, the nature of its operations and the, in fact, recent circumstances of its creation, the more reasonable it becomes to abolish ICE. Do we citizens want to continue to permit the existence of a law enforcement agency that takes as operating principle that its targets have fewer rights than citizens? No, this is clearly a dangerous precedent, eroding the presumption of innocence on an operational level that is fundamental to the rule of law. Conservatives, at least of the libertarian variety, should understand this. If ICE continues, what's next? More ATFs?
5
An informed electorate would likely want to abolish ICE, at least as it now operates. Unfortunately, there are so many loud, profitable, and self-interested sources of mis- and dis- information in the US, an “informed electorate” is a near impossibility. People who watch Fox News, listen to Alex Jones, or subscribe to QAnon’s Twitter feed become impervious to reason.
6
I believe that in “informed electorate“ would more likely want reasonable controls and enforcement of reasonable immigration policies. “Abolish ICE” plays right into Trump’s hands. ICE Just does what it’s told to do. The call to abolishin just does what it’s told to do. The call to abolish it makes about as much sense as abolishing police.
24
I liked this article and its conclusions, but there is an omission common to commentaries on immigration: support for immigration is not just a compassionate idea. Immigration is critical to the survival of the United States. Our existing population—especially, its white component—is not reproducing itself in sufficient numbers to perpetuate itself. And we already have an every growing proportion of retired senior citizens compared to younger workers. The trend will escalate as the Baby Boomers reach requirement age.
The economic implications are clear. We need immigrants to provide the younger tax-paying workers needed to support an increasingly aged population. Instead of ICE, we should have Ellis Island-like centers all along our southern borders. They should welcome immigrants seeking entrance, see to the legal requirements, and pair them up with American sponsors and businesses who will help them become productive American citizens.
You have to be an outright nativist or bigot not to see this.
10
@SouthernView Ok, so why not make immigrants, especially undocumented/illegal immigrants pay double or triple FICA taxes, make them in eligible for benefits? Or reduce their benefits? That way they would HELP citizens of the country they choose to immigrate to, as opposed to harming American citizens.
6
@SouthernView So you would be fine with changing the formula for FICA taxes, making immigrants and "guest workers" pay double or triple the amount of FICA taxes, but making them eligible for only greatly reduced benefits when they reach retirement age? Because that's one way they could actually help US citizens.
Even 19 ICE agents have signed a letter saying ICE should be disbanded because Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants has made it more difficult for them to investigate more significant national security issues. Alonzo Peña, a former ICE deputy director, told the Texas Observer: "We were supposed to be out there making these major cases against big cartels that are smuggling guns, drugs, money. But because of this whole immigration rhetoric — that immigrants are bad, that they’re criminals and rapists and all that — the focus is totally off mission.” But instead of just calling for ICE to be abolished, Dems should propose a broad and humane immigration policy that enforces our laws but treats people decently, allows a certain number of legitimate asylum seekers and permits some type of guest worker program to provide farm labor and meet the needs of other industries such as meat packing and construction.
8
@Christy
ICE = U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
You see the IMMIGRATION in its name....guess what that means?
3
@Christy: This is similar to local police officers encountering the mentally ill. Who endanger the public and themselves. The mentally ill are at major risk, particularly of being shot by police.
When the solution to this, has been permanent institutionalization for those so dysfunctional.
The lack of controlling our borders, and making immigrants understand THEIR need to respect them, has turned the ability to do so, chaotic and impossible. We'd never be able to welcome ALL who want to be here, we have limited resources and need for so much immigration.
The world is a smaller place.
What idiotic irony, that there is all this hand wringing over Russian interference with the election.
But interference with our borders, and the integrity of our nation's security in other ways, people want to ignore that?!
2
Dear progressives: The rest of the country hates Trump and is on its way to booting him and his fellow travelers in Congress. But here you are again to mess things up.
Abolish ICE is the next Occupy Wall Street. You remember how successful that one was: Dems lost control of Congress and did even worse in state elections. The poll the author gloats about says it all. Abolish ICE has no support outside of hard-core Democrats. Hello six more years of Trump destroying America.
Stop thinking like a protest movement and start thinking like a political party. Until progressives focus on candidates and issues that win GENERAL elections, they will fail.
53
I have yet to meet a voter from either party that isn’t in favor of the United States having total control of it’s borders. ICE may be going about it in the wrong way, but campaigning on a platform of all the border controls you want to get rid of is such a bad idea only the Democrats couldn’t have come up with it. The Russians must be thrilled to have such a great new divisive slogan to promote.
70
@Peter
I meant to say "could," not "couldn't..."
I'm a life long Democrat but I will happily vote against anyone who favors abolishing ICE. This point can't be emphasized enough....this absurd idea is not and never will be a mainstream Democratic view. As usual the far left is dragging us into another cultural war we can't possibly win. This plays into the Fox narrative that Democrats want open borders which we don't. ICE is a necessary agency. The majority of arrests and deportations are of people who have criminal convictions, have been charged with a crime, or have been ordered removed by a judge. If ICE was abolished Progressives would surely hate its replacement. That would mean reuniting all immigration functions in an agency like the INS housed at the Justice Department and directly under the control of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The proposals to abolish ICE are stupid and will go no where in Congress. We have to have border enforcement. For good or bad ICE is the best agency to do that right now.
70
Abolishing ICE is not a general election win and it is not a win in most other elections. Dems have to be very careful if they want to flip red districts and federal elections. There needs to be common sense immigration enforcement but not terror. This can happen in the modern world. Dems don’t need the specifics to win in close races in purple states, but that message would help. We can have an immigration system that protects people from danger back home but doesn’t automatically allow them to stay in the US no matter what.
36
@Anthony
Really Anthony? How so?
In my 60 years I've seen little gain from America's role as police man of the world. Justice for citizens of this country is based on $'s earned and $'s spent defending oneself. What's left for the non-citizen?
What in Blue Blazes do you think USA will do for anyone else who isn't the Shah of Iran?
1
@Anthony
I agree. I'm a progressive. "Abolish ICE" what does that mean? My first thought is open borders. I don't want that. I want immigration reform and a better system of legal immigration. This is truly an awful slogan if what they mean is reform.
9
The call to abolish ICE may or may not be necessary. But one thing I'm sure of is this: if the agency is not respecting the rights of vulnerable people, then let us fight it, and don't worry about the political repercussions. It is only when we protect the defenseless that we know why we participate in politics at all. If Trump's election has freed us in any way, it is to defend our values.
15
@jim guerin What about the rights of vulnerable Americans? Why are those rights less important?
2
And what about the recent reports from Facebook that disguised Russian accounts are generating interest in abolishing ice and trying to coordinate protests with legitimate organizations. It's the same mischief as the lead up to the last elections. I don't support this administration's immigration policies but are we going to let the Russians continue to stir up trouble like before? This is one of those dog-whistle topics.
30
The Abolish ICE movement is nothing more than an ideological shift to support open borders and to allow any and all, regardless on how they arrived, a path to citizenship. It is a failed ideological movement in that it fails to consider the consequences of an open border policy and the dire impact it will have on our economy, our schools, our healthcare system and most importantly, our culture. Thankfully this charade, although supported by left leaning news organizations, only plays well in the blue regions of the US. In the border states, where the impact of illegal immigration is seen daily, the movement has little or no support. The movement will impact the upcoming election in that it will certainly guarantee conservatives voting and may motivate those moderates and fence sitters that the ideological shift in the Democratic party poses a great threat. They will either vote against their parties interest, or stay home.
115
We invite all people to come to America to vacation, invest and spend their money. We should open our arms to people who want to come to America to work. We should offer them legal ways to do so based upon our own national needs. We don't need to treat them like criminals in order to make sure they don't take away jobs or lower incomes. We should treat them like guests just like we do all of our visitors to America.
The people who hire "undocumented" workers in order to pay lower wages are the only criminals in this enterprise.
9
@Ronny Generally they are paid a legal min wage minus tax withholding.
Who else wpuld take those jobs?
1
@Pat Sommer
Honestly examine why Americans "won't take" certain jobs. Maybe the jobs need to be restructured so they are not dangerously strenuous or difficult (which could be done), or maybe the wages simply need to rise enough to allow a living wage. It is wrong to subject immigrants to these conditions simply because they are desperate enough to tolerate them. And they DO depress wages for Americans.
@Ronny Why should the US be the only country in the world with open borders, and what will happen to the quality of life here when that idiotic John Lennon era dream is achieved? Do you think there is more available land here than there was 100 years ago? In fact, with warming the amount of habitable land in the US will probably be reduced by half. Open borders will destroy this country, and since no other country would be stupid enough to open its borders, US citizens won't be able to emigrate out of the US, but will be stuck with the mess created by idealistic fools.
5
The Democrats may be moving left on ICE, but that doesn't mean that the whole country is. And we're not the only ones voting. The poll cited here showing 49% to 44% approval rating nationwide should not engender too much confidence. 5% is certainly the difference between winning and losing any election. Even the liberal, inclusive and compassionate President Obama knew that border security matters. It does.
Rather than talk about abolishing ICE and replacing it with some unknown entity, we should focus on what ICE is charged with. Separating kids from parents should never be allowed, no matter who is in authority, and that's where the focus ought to be. By and large, ICE is as good as their marching orders. Sure, there are a few heavy handed individuals who should be weeded out and made accountable; that's true with any power.
What we need to devote our energy towards is addressing immigration policy itself, not those charged with enforcement. And to do that, we have to win Congress and counter Trump's extremism and cruelty. We will lose, though, if we just follow the dead end of abolishing ICE.
68
@NM Before ICE we had the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Border Patrol). I imagine we still do. They did the job before and they can do it again.
The problem with the "abolish ICE" rhetoric is that is plays into the Republican/Trump manta of "dems want open borders." There may be some dems that would like open borders, but most don't. Only 32% of adults favor it. What's needed is a "humane immigration system" that meets the country's needs for more workers and does so in a fair and dignified way. I really don't care whether that humane system is called "ICE" or something else.
74
Abolish ICE is a great rallying cry, but Democrats need to say what they will replace it with. The Dems need to be better educators of the electorate, finding ways to communicate the reasonableness and feasibility of their proposed policies. Medicare for all makes sense; tell the public why and how. Immigration reform makes sense: tell the public what you would do, why, and how. Avoid identifying labels: Sanders' 'democratic socialist' scared uneducated people. Instead, describe policies and their benefits.
59
@mls If Democrats say what they would replace ICE with before the election, Republicans will misrepresent and distort whatever the Democrats say. As the party out of power, Democrats need to criticize Republican policies and actions and demand change. It is not for the party out of power to provide the party in power a target to shoot at.
Immigration reform proposals have been consistently shot down for partisan reasons. There can be no reform until one of two things happens: either the sharp divisions among Americans are healed so that compromise is possible or one party gains total control for long enough (more than one or two Congressional terms) to force through its version of reform. Neither appears likely in the foreseeable future.
2
@Eleanor,
Re: "There can be no reform until one of two things happens: either the sharp divisions among Americans are healed so that compromise is possible or one party gains total control for long enough (more than one or two Congressional terms) to force through its version of reform. Neither appears likely in the foreseeable future."
I fear you are mistaken. One party *is* likely to gain total control: Republicans.
And making immigration, anti-gun, and pro abortion your number one, two, and three issues, is going to keep Democrats where they are right now: Out of Power. Having given up the FDR legacy of keeping bankers hands off the levers of the economy, having given up the credibility that Democrats actually favor labor - at all - leaves them without a coalition of voters able to actually win elections in key swing states. Wisconsin is now red. WISCONSIN. Go ahead and win NY and CA by even more millions of votes. So? What good is that?
If Democrats can't beat someone as incompetent and hated as Trump, then they truly are terrible at winning elections, and need drastic change, if they are to begin winning. Being seen as pro Open borders isn't a winning plank. That isn't a plea for less immigration, it is simply an objective analysis of whether that position will help Democrats, or hurt them.
And if you don't think Democrats need help to win? Or that they have lost all credibility as the party of labor? That is the biggest problem of all.
29
@mls
ICE can be replaced with what we had before ICE, before 2003. We have NO undocumented immigrant problem worth worrying about - it's a lie.
Had no big problems pre-2003 and none now.
Net undocumented immigration has been negative since 2003.
The democratic party is the party of the west coast and northeast corridor and has lost virtually everything in between - Abolishing ICE is popular on the coasts. but it totally toxic in between - If the democrats run as a party that wants to abolish ICE they will remain a coastal party only
17
Abolishing ICE won’t mean a thing as long as 45 and his minions have control of federal enforcement agencies. It’s a slogan, like “Build a Wall!” I’m tired of demagogues who tweet whatever riles up their base.
6
The Democrats are on their way to using their incredible superpower of losing elections when everything is going their way. Positioning the Democratic party as on the side of illegal immigrants, while ignoring the needs of blue collar voters throughout the heartland - a "classic" way to alienate the key voting bloc in the country. Only the Democrats could be this delusional.
26
@Jason McDonald Yes, truly amazing.
As horrid as Trump is on many dimensions, remember that Hillary LOST to him. What did that make her in the eyes of the electorate?
4
I don't think ICE should be abolished. It is a silly ultra left wing idea. What should be done is to get rid of its director and replace that person with someone who does not abuse families, especially children. Getting rid of Trump-vote him out can change that if Democrats, especially moderates are in control.
6
This is a reactionary idea borne of anger and a knee jerk response to the cruel and inhumane treatment we've seen inflicted upon asylum seekers. If you want to eliminate a government agency you first need to make them obsolete- we need a comprehensive and fair immigration system with a path to citizenship that does not take 25 years to complete! When ICE no longer serves a purpose- it will succumb to "budget cuts" just like every other redundancy. To engage this battle and waste political capital on it at this time is just reckless! Americans will rally their support behind an immigration system that both protects working Americans and welcomes those who would make better lives for themselves.
38
@Geraldine In other words, you want open borders.
5
@Geraldine,
first of i dont know who told you that it takes 25 years to attain US citizenship because it is incorrect , i came here in 1998 on H1B visa , applied for my greencard in 2001, received my greencard in 2003 , applied for naturalization in 2006 and got naturalized in 2007 so overall from the day i applied for my GC and got my citizenship it took about 4 years !
I also want to remind you of the fact that in order for any immigration system to be fair enforcement of immigration laws and suppression of illegal immigration is crucial !
5
"Abolish ICE" is a good one liner to test the convictions of a nebulous left that may or may not solidify in time for the mid terms. Remember that Trump had backtested “Lock her up” before applying it to his platform. He even paid programmers to sift demographics extracted from Facebook and other points.
4
This issue is so complex that only immigration reform can solve the problem. I believe in DACA and that a person who came here illegally 20 years ago, married and had children as in the most recent case should not be deported but I do not believe in open borders as the way to go. Perhaps the whole situation today is bigoted but European mass immigration stopped years ago and the people coming in today are mostly minority. ICE is not just about people but also try’s to stop
weapons coming across the border and art theft. We need immigrants but it should be done in a way that benefits the country whether it be highly educated or for jobs such as chicken plant workers that Americans
don’t want to do
17
'Abolish ICE' will be the slogan that ensures another 4 years of Donald Trump. He'll simplify it to mean 'Dems want open borders'. And it will work.
19
We lefties just love to lose by diving into the details and nuance of an issue--think John Kerry's thoughtful three paragraph speech on the Senate floor explaining why he was reversing his position on the authorization to use force in Iraq vs "he was for it before he was against it"--so the temptation in the "abolish ICE!" debate is to bloviate about how ICE was formed in 2003, FDR's moving the INS to the Justice department and perhaps even the Immigration Act of 1924, stacking up paragraphs of fun facts that show how dang smart we are while Trump and his base shout "Build that wall!" The possibility that the wall will get built is roughly equivalent to ICE being abolished but both cries serve as effective rallying cry. In the current political environment these seems a sound strategy.
10
I put this movement on a par with: 1.)abolish the IRS, and 2.) no more green vegetables
9
If you abolish ICE; that means once you get passed the BP; there is no enforcement of any immigration laws so in effect you are home free. Is this really want the American people want? so terrorists; drug smugglers; people previously deported for all kinds of reasons; etc could come in and do what ever they like because there would be no one to stop them.
Second issue; dont know about the rest of you but the previous immigrants we knew as we grew up here in the 70's -90's; well they assimilated; they learned English; they became Americanized. Now a days we are catering to people who want all the benefits of this country but wont learn English and become Americanized. We are also importing in too many foreign workers to do jobs; companies wont pay a fair wage for along with benefits because they can get these immigrants ( both legal and illegal as the I 9 does not work well) to do the work.
Enough is enough. We need to stop all immigration except for so many refugees; stop all work visas from being issues; cancel existing work visas and allow our own citizens to do the work and get a fair wage.
NO amnesty. NO work permits. NO nothing but deportation.
41
Russia! Immigration! Toilets! Trump! Ever notice how the so called left media never goes near issues that actually matter to the working people of this country, and instead throws the spotlight on culture war nonsense? They seem to love to generate talking points that can be used by Fox Noise to make mock of all things progressive. It's insult added to injury.
As has been said, when they don't talk about the money, it's all about the money. The money issues are: the pointless $100B Neolibs just handed the Pentagon, endless war and overseas military at another $100B a year ($50B alone for watching dirt blow in the wind in Afghanistan), keeping health insurance in the sphere of the Free Racket economy and as far from away from single payer as possible, and treating the wealthy as though their comfort and peace of mind is paramount to the Middle Class.
Culture war matters, sure. But it's a problem when what is not talked about is bread and butter. Your Neoliberal DNC is there to do for Wall St., the Pentagon, and it's so called leadership at your expense. Let the Neoliberal DNC know, "not Trump" ain't gonna do it come election time.
11
Politics makes for strange bedfellows. As near as I can tell, every democrat politician that has been elected to US Congress and Senate since Trump began his presidency.....every one of them in a special election......and every one of them SUPPORTS various Trump initiatives. I see no change in future democrats that get elected to national offices...or even local offices. The current political slogan fad....."Abolish ICE"....is straight out of the Trump playbook......its the counter to "Build That Wall".......and also firmly in the "That'll Never Happen" column....but it served to establish a dialog and an agreement with Trump.....making people like Ms. Ocasio far more likely to vote WITH Trump that against him, as the Old Guard DNC demands.
1
"Now, for the first time in American history, there is a possibility that we can build an immigration system that sees immigrants as something else: human."
And what is that exactly? Abolish borders. Declare illegal immigration equal to legal immigration. And send an invite to all of Latin America to move here -- come one, come all; no questions asked? Please fill us in with the details?
21
Reading these comments, it seems that readers don’t understand that before 2002, there was no such thing as ICE. Abolishing it is really just a return to the status quo. Also stop saying abolition of ICE equals “open borders”. Border Control Agency does that job. ICE is just state-backed terror.
13
@Corbin Before there was ICE, there was the INS (ended ops in 2003.) There has ALWAYS been some service that enforces our immigration laws.
The desire to completely remove enforcement is new. Crazy and new.
8
Before 2002, we had INS--Immigration and Naturalization Service. They were in charge of both immigration enforcement and the naturalization process. These were seen as conflicting responsibilities, and the agency was broken up to form ICE and US Citizenship and Naturalization Services, both within DoH.
We have been enforcing our immigration and naturalization process for more than a century, to include forcible deportation of those legally excluded.
6
@Corbin ICE replaced the INS. There has been an agency in charge of immigration enforcement for many decades.
2
Unpopular as they may appear we need ICE. We can't just have people strolling across the borders and sneaking into the country.
Let's give ICE some credit here.
17
Democrats need to decide what do they want - a welfare state or the open borders as they cannot have both. Ask anyone if they want a tax increase to support immigrants from all over.
17
The Homeland Security Act did not create ICE. That was done by Bush administration executive fiat in early 2003.
Miss Cortez seems to be just another light weight that we see far too much of from both parties. Abolishing ICE is a silly idea. We need this agency to protect the integrity of the US. We all need to remember that illegals are just that . When leftist politicians go so far as to announce when ICE is going to be in their city putting those agents lives at risk they should be sanctioned.
10
Far too many people on the left seem to be only capable saying what kinds of immigration enforcement they oppose. "Not this, not that," they say. "Look at this poor undocumented worker of color unfairly targeted by ICE!"
But then what kinds of immigration enforcement should we have and who exactly should be deported? On these questions, leftists are overwhelmingly silent. You could be forgiven for thinking they oppose all immigration enforcement. Many actually do.
But I'm convinced this is a losing position for Democrats. First, it's flatly ridiculous that we shouldn't enforce immigration laws in some serious fashion. Second, it's ridiculous to hold that immigrants are always good for all classes of Americans, barring racists.
I've always voted Democrat and I was with Obama on immigration. Deport illegal immigrants without vilifying them. But the whole "abolish ICE" crowd has me siding with the Republicans for a change.
69
@Dave: Me too.
3
This position is obviously designed to appeal to Latino voters, but I frankly have no idea what's going on in the minds of Latino voters vis a vis the mid-terms, including here in Albuquerque. The conventional wisdom seems to be that Latinos were largely responsible for reelecting Obama in '12. I distinctly remember Our Mr. Brooks, after '12, imploring Republicans to start appealing to Latinos. Well, Republicans they didn't exactly appeal to Latinos in '16, and we saw how that worked out for Republicans, i.e., just fine. Now I've read that Latinos, despite the horror of Trump, are, astonishingly, not expected to vote in great numbers this Fall. Are they living in utter terror, afraid to leave their homes for the polling place or registration table? Are they utterly apathetic - or hopeless - like the 100 mil. registered voters who did not vote in '16? Is familia, once again, trumping patria? I'm baffled by this mysterious group.
3
“Abolish ICE” is an oversimplification which serves Trump & the right by distracting from the Trump admin’s abhorrent policies.
There are some bedrocks of unqualified unity for Dems & independents: Protecting Medicare and Social Security, while reversing the new tax law favors corporations & the uber wealthy. An historic Blue Wave that retakes Congress is our civic & moral responsibility. We must awaken independents, & Dems across the spectrum to vote Blue.
1
Abolishing ICE is not a "left" position, it is the ONLY position possible for anyone that can tell the difference between good and evil.
Every country has the right to regulate immigration and create internationally recognized borders. Those who believe in open borders should speak with American Indians, Palestinians, and Kurds about why internationally recognized borders are important. America is a nation of immigrants, and is our legacy enshrined in the Statue of Liberty. The notion that someone is an illegal or undocumented resident is a recent development in our country. Americans should understand some of our first naturalization laws simply stipulated residents could apply for citizenship after residing here for a number of years, a policy stripped of the old racist language that should drive comprehensive immigration reform. Millions of mixed families who have settled, purchased homes, and contribute to our society. They along with legal residents contribute to our legacy not the racist xenophobes who want to make America white again.
Very different from July Politico/MorningConsult poll (more objective source?) showing 25% of voters wanting to abolish ICE and 54% wanting to keep it.
5
We have been running scared since 9/11. ICE is a product of that fear. I feel that ICE has turned into a gang of thugs with the likes of 45 in charge and not a police force at the border .
We should severely cut funding to ICE and rebuild it into a force that we can be proud of. At this point I am more afraid of ICE than I am of immigrants. But then that's just me. We can tear down liberty, hide from "the other" and wallow in our fear but is that the America we want?
This country that I love is breaking my heart.
10
@DC America actually having borders and attempting to have some level of control over those who enters it with intent to stay breaks your heart? I would argue this country which is breaking your heart would not be a sovereign nation (country) without these measures.
12
The vast majority of Americans support ICE 100% and in fact, most of us think ICE doesn't go far enough (and isn't supported enough by craven politicians, pandering for votes!) in detaining and deporting illegal aliens.
To deport 25 million is going to be a big job, and we get to be pro-active in every way, every day, all the time to keep our borders secure and force criminals to leave.
BTW: the left can adopt this, but it is a losing issue. 85% of Americans OPPOSE illegal immigration -- and you can call it "undocumented" until you are blue in the face... it's ILLEGAL!!!
18
@Concerned Citizen
According to polling, you are incorrect. ICE is not supported '100%' by most people.
But we're not for 'open borders' as those on the right attempt to claim. We are for humane immigration policy. ICE was only established in 2002, INS was the agency tasked with immigration previous to that.....so ridding ourselves of ICE shouldn't be that difficult, and then a newer department could be established with new ground rules that aren't quite so inhumane &obviously racist.
1
How is advocating for open borders and unfettered immigration, pitting the working-class against exploited immigrants moving "left" on immigration?? As Bernie Sanders has rightly pointed out, this is a right-wing Koch Brothers idea, expanding the labor pool and setting them all against each other so that you can drive down the cost. Sean McElwee is not a liberal, he's a covert conservative. Data for Progress is not a grassroots organization. It's a corporate front group, bankrolled by the tech industry with precisely the goal of expanding immigration to reduce labor costs. The tech industry views anyone who's not them as muggles and widgets, endlessly interchangeable and as quantifiable as binary code. It's a new take on social Darwinism, not a progressive breakthrough.
26
The victory of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a bit overblown. Didn't she win with only a 13% registered voter turnout? Was this a case of voter apathy vs. her stance on the issues?
While she's right to shine a light on ICE and its treatment of detainees, let's see how she represents her constituents first before we all put her on a pedestal and direct the Democrat's agenda. If present is any indication, she appears to have more of an interest in a national profile than a local one.
14
@MRose
Too late, the Democrats have elevated a local NYC small-timer to messiah status. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is the fresh face of Democratic Neo-Socialism.
3
I have come to the conclusion that Republicans are evil and smart and Democrats are good and stupid.
The idea that Abolish ICE is a winning slogan confirms my belief.
54
@Talbot exactly. Most republicans read the "abolish ice" slogan as: "we want open borders now" -- the dems are doomed in next election rounds if this gains traction.
14
@Talbot
Since when are elections supposed to be about winning SLOGANS rather than fact-based policies ... ?
You never heard the expression: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."?
Or how about Winston Churchill's quip: "I a man isn't liberal when he's young, he has no heart; but if he isn't conservative when he's old, he has no brain."
By the way, why don't you YouTube old clips of Hillary, Dianne Feinstein and company defending strict illegal immigration policies if you think Republicans are so "evil." I'd say far more telling is how hypocritical Democrats are.
One election victory does not indicate that the countries electorate is willing to approve and open border policy as
supported by the Democrats. During the last election
the polls showed that Ms. Clinton was a sure winner. Look
what happened.
23
@cbarber
What happened is that she got 3 million more votes, as predicted.
You know why?
Because she wanted to continue the increase in immigration law enforcement that Obama started, all while doing so in a humane way, that is compatible with core American values.
There ARE no "open border policy" supporting Democrats. If you think there are, try to come up with just ONE example, and then you'll see for yourself.
2
@cbarber No Democrat supports "open borders"! Where do you people get his stuff?
1
From the column: "“They’re trying to send every possible signal that there are people who don’t belong in this country, and it’s not people from Norway. "
Does the United States have a significant number of illegal (undocumented) immigrants from Norway coming here?
I agree that ICE should be neutral on matters of ethnic group, religion, etc. Still, immigration must be controlled. As far as Mr. McElwee's survey goes: did he ask neutral questions? Does suppressing salaries count as being a drain or contribution to society? I'd guess the folks at the top like keeping salaries down.
35
I'd like one of the Abolish ICE fanatics to explain how it is that if someone sneaks across the southern border, he/she immediately has the right to stay here no questions asked -- otherwise, it's a racial and human rights issue? But if someone arrives here by plane and cannot produce a passport at airport customs, the person is immediately sent back without anyone losing sleep over it?
43
Is your employer an undocumented immigrant? It is my belief that employers are the ones that are responsible for low wages, since the decision to pay their employees is one they make.
Democratic Socialism like that of Scandinavian countries focus on health and education for all. It is not about immigration. Mixing immigration with the major goals of achieving health coverage for all and free education for all - muddies the focus.
27
@Jaque In fact, many of these Scandinavian countries had probably an easier time of establishing universal healthcare and more affordable education because they were less diverse as a society.
I welcome the US' diversity but muddying up the waters with the rights of undocumented immigrants in the context of more democratic socialism is not helping.
13
@Jaque Also, the Scandinavian countries focus on health and education for their OWN CITIZENS, not for the entire planet.
1
@Jaque
Norway is small... about the size of NYC, and they ferociously protect their borders and emphasize the purity of their Norwegian culture.... i.e. they don't want to lose it.
Immigrating to Norway would be a very, very, difficult task... low on the list of requirements, you will have to speak the language fluently and many other immigrant duties.
8
The far left is absolutely correct that ICE has gone too far, just listen to one of its senior officials equating facilities for forcibly separating children from their parents to “ summer camps.” But the need to reform ICE, or to recreate a more humane and effective border control agency, is one you have when you are IN power not one to champion when you are facing the most consequential election of our time.
10
Claudia Tenney campaigning for the NY 22nd Congressional District is running ads on local TV accusing Nancy Pelosi and her opponent Anthony Brindisi of wanting to let horrible criminals into the country. She obviously thinks this a winning issue.
Brindisi has responded that he supports strong borders and does not support Nancy Pelosi. He recognizes that this is an emotional issue for the many Republican voters who populate the district.
It would be nice if we could get to a point where people talk more about what an acceptable solution to the problem of undocumented immigrants living in the shadows would look like. Tenney is pandering to the worst fears of her constituents. Brindisi talks about working across the aisle, no idea with whom he'd work, to find solutions. Who will win?
The core problem is not ICE. It is what ICE has been turned into by an administration that parades its gratuitous cruelty and bigotry as a celebratory march of victorious nativism. We need border enforcement, but it must be subservient to law, avoid abuse and always act out of compassion.
The President of the United States behaves abusively as his daily routine. His tweets are abusive. His rallies are insulting. His pronouncements are uniformly derogatory. With leadership like that, it follows that the agencies of executive command would behave accordingly.
If we insist upon dismantling ICE, then by that logic, we must abolish the EPA, the Treasury, Homeland Security and the State Department as well. Progressive ire should be directed at the malignant head of our carcinogenic government.
11
@John lebaron
That's not true at all. ICE is but one of three sub- departments within Homeland Security that deals with immigration. Indeed, we could chuck ICE into the middle of the South Pacific and watch it rapidly melt inot oblivion, and Homeland Security would still very much be intact.
If Democrats get up early in the morning and begin the hard work of clearing up these widely held misconceptions, we might catch both the Russians and their Republican puppets with their pants down on this issue (apologies to Buck Turgidson).
1
o,yeah,abolishing ICE will certainty be a winning
strategy FOR THE REPUBLICANS! not every
election, in case our far left friends have not
noticed, is determined in New York or Massachusetts.reform ICE,yes,but Americans
have an absolute right to keep dangerous illegal
immigrants out of our country. this young woman
from Queens won by a tiny sliver of the vote
in a liberal district where the arrogance of the
incumbent was the deciding factor. if Democrats
keep this up, not only will we lose in 2018,but
DJT will be re elected in 2020.
44
If you have to come up with long-winded explanations for why your chosen slogan does or doesn't mean exactly what it says, then you've already lost. I don't know why Democrats have such a hard time figuring that out. "Abolish ICE" is a guaranteed loser, and most people tune out whatever comes after that.
34
It is such a shame that the passion we Democrats now share does not translate into effective election-winning strategies. Abolish ICE, no matter how justified, loses more voters than it gains. We should focus on the policies, not the agencies.
16
@notsocasualobserver
"Abolish ICE, no matter how justified, loses more voters than it gains. We should focus on the policies, not the agencies."
No matter how justified?
Yes it IS justified. Take a chance and play like a winner. Shout out "Abolish ICE" and take the fight to them. It's the right thing to do.
Or would you rather stick with, "A Better Way?"
@Fourteen
Actually, it's taken them two years, but it seems that they've finally coughed up a new slogan - "For the People". What could possibly go wrong. Have to say though, i think your party would have a better shot with that one than "Abolish ICE".
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/08/03/democrats-spent-years...
1
@rtj
"Actually, it's taken them two years, but it seems that they've finally coughed up a new slogan - "For the People.""
Better but still lame.
I'd prefer something that leads the People forward, that stretches their mind. "Abolish ICE" is good. It's passionate and risky. Exactly what the Democrats need to get back in the game.
But I'd prefer, "Take Your Money Back!," or "Lock 'em Up!" or "Eat the Rich!" or "Abolish Taxes!" or "$30/hour!" or "Tax Corporations!" or (better) "Tax Republicans!"
Maybe "Open Borders!!"
Something you can put on a hat.
But all that's just too much for the 80-year-old Democrat leaders. Might give them conniptions. They'd rather lose gracefully than win forcefully.
Almost makes you want to vote Republican - at least you'd get a hat.
Informative article on an important issue. I did not understand the newness of ICE or how it is redundant in enforcing immigration policy; I would now rejoice in its elimination. At the same time, I fear trolling, distrust the inclination of the electorate to educate itself (my own ignorance being example A), and don't want any issue to divide Democrats in the face of a vicious President and the corrupt political party that supports him. Alligators all around folks. Please VOTE VOTE VOTE in the midterms.
1
Seeing immigrants as human is morally the correct stance and laws should avoid dehumanizing any individuals. However, illegal immigration is a crime and should remain so. ICE is the enforcer of our laws related to customs and immigration that go back to early in our Republic's history and they play a vital role in the management of our government. Supporting and improving ICE is what we should be advocating for and not abolishment.
As a life long democrat stances like the abolishment of ICE drives me further from the party. There is a need for a third powerful party based on common sense and soon.
37
Keep beating the "Abolish ICE" drum loudly enough, and conservatives will be thanking you in the upcoming elections.
29
@dc
"Keep beating the "Abolish ICE" drum loudly enough, and conservatives will be thanking you"
"Abolish ICE" separates the Progressives from the namby-pamby Posers (the Clinton Democrats) so afraid of risk they hide from a fight. "OMG! We might Lose!" is the cry of a coward.
It also slaps the sclerotic Democrat leadership right in the face. Good!
911 spawned CPB, ICE, CIS--never made sense--
https://www.cato.org/pbliucations/commentary/make-america-safer-shut-dow...?
1
Noooo... don’t run on this. We will lose. We lose on immigration. Doesn’t everyone get that? That’s how Trump won.
Save the climate. Increase funding to schools. Stop the trade war. Appoint liberal justices. Protect gay rights. But do not, for god sake, be seen as the Open Border Party.
61
@Maximus I was getting ready to write exactly the same thing, only you said it so well. Whether or not abolishing ICE is tantamount to an Open-Border policy, you can be certain the Republicans will successfully make it seem so. It should be clear that grass-roots activism, no matter how passionate, does not necessarily mean broad voter support. as the article states plainly: <The energy behind the movement is coming from grass-roots immigration groups.> Yes it is.
20
@Maximus, it's too late, the democrats are now for open borders, free healthcare for all, free college (including those that come here illegally). and now subsidized housing for all.
Democrats are going to run on all these free things AND call for lowering the national debt.
Can anyone tell us how they plan to do all these things at once?
4
@N Riano I can. They will steal the money from the SS Trust Fund then reduce or just end the benefits US citizens paid for all their lives.
Abolishing ICE is like abolishing the Army—neither makes policy, but merely enforces the policy as determined by the Executive branch according to laws Congress has passed.
Democrats and others who opposed the war in Iraq never called for the abolishment of our armed forces!
We ought to abolish “Abolish ICE” as the same mindless nonsense as “Lock Her Up”, and “Build That Wall”.
At the same time, Democrats who fail to oppose the straight-up White Supremacy and racism of Trump and Stephen Miller’s Immigration “policies” —because they are too craven to engage with White voters who are uncomfortable with the stark reality of racism—do no favor for themselves politically.
Twisting your morality into a pretzel by diverting every discussion about race into one about infrastructure and healthcare is transparently phony (see Clinton; Hillary and Bill),
It inspires no one while paying a heavy price for silence when the bill becomes due years later for the consequences of the Crime Bill and Welfare Reform.
Imagine JFK, LBJ, and RFK campaigning on better jobs and Medicare while people were being beaten and lynched for insisting on their simple human rights.
Now think about Trump’s putting children in cages for no other reason his desire to turn up the political volume to “11”.
How is reacting to that with “Abolish Ice” not the same thing without the moral outrage that shines light on a true fix for our Immigration policies?
1
@John C
About time the Democrats started shouting, “Lock Her Up” and “Build That Wall.”
Or do you recommend, "A Better Way?"
Abolish ICE, raise taxes, what could possibly go wrong?
Fortunately the left (and the far left is the party now) can't help themselves. Please let us know where to send our contributions :-)
26
Immigration policy is this country has been festering like a dead skunk under the front porch for far too long. Our collective approach to immigration has been schizophrenic long before Trump. We've been lax in allowing companies to use undocumented workers and our inconsistent approach has led to families being here in the US for 20 years that pay taxes, and are now part of the community. We can't just retroactively start enforcing something without great damage. Calls to abolish ICE are short sighted. We need a different immigration policy and guest worker program.
8
"Abolish" sounds too radical to many. How about, "replace ICE with something better -- an agency that respects families and upholds American values."
5
When Democrats seek to establish “centrist” cred, they frequently find a weak segment of the population, often Democrats themselves, and back actions that hurt and further marginalize those constituencies. Many of these actions are listed in the article and involve the Clinton and Obama administrations.
FDR did it too when he opened Japanese American concentration camps during WWII.
Ottavio-Cortez and her fellow insurgents are having none of it. Appeasing Stephen Miller is the last thing on their minds. The Democratic Party ought to come out from their panic rooms and take a look.
1
The Abolish ICE meme is quickly degenerating to Abolish (Pol)ICE on the protest signs. If Dems ride this horse, their destination is political purgatory for decades to come.
31
It is clear that ICE needs to be reformed at the very least. What is needed is a clear detailed immigration policy by the Democratic Party. This is something that for reasons complicated they have so far failed to do.
Because of this failure by the Democrats, Trump and the GOP are defining the Democratic policy. And Abolish ICE is a LOSING policy for Democrats which is why Trump is pushing it.
Every day this continues, the Democrats are snatching a big loss from the jaws of victory. The party "leaders" are either ignorant of this situation or too inept to respond. Thus the Abolish ICE movement goes along to the Democrats detriment.
The bottom line is that the Democrats need blue bodies sitting in Congress. They need to win seats. Allowing Trump and the GOP to define and blast out OUR immigration policy is sheer folly.
Get your act together NOW if you want to win Mr. Perez and Mr. Hernandez. Speak up NOW because it is already too late.
3
1. The left should not be empowering Trump to change the structure of the Federal government in any way. If Trump and the GOP take Abolish ICE activists on their offer, they will simply change the name and give the agency more power.
2. The Republicans and the centrist Democrats have been waging a fake war on immigration designed to last forever. Amnesty is not a solution to the immigration crisis. And a wall is not a solution either. Most illegal immigrants come through the gates not around them.
3. The real solution to illegal immigration is a demand side solution. Immigrants come here because employers hire them. Prosecute the employers that fire Americans to hire immigrants and they will hire less of them. Then create a legal immigration system that works.
4. The illegality of the immigrants is why they are useful to employers. It means that they can ignore employment law (including minimum wages, overtime rules, etc.). More importantly it means they can use immigrants as a threat against their other employees to keep them from asking for higher wages or more benefits.
Making illegal immigrants more illegal only helps these employers abuse their legal and illegal workers. This is why I don't use the term "undocumented."
5. We have created a global system where the rich are free to move their money, machinery, and intellectual property across borders, which for Americans has meant stagnant pay and shrinking benefits, but humans are stuck behind borders.
Its unfair.
5
The perception that Democrats are for open borders is a sure war to keep Republicans and their destructive policies in power. We should have well reasoned, practical immigration policies that control borders, understand who is in the country on a visa and have policies to prevent overstaying. This assumes policies that allow reasonable immigration, provide a path to legal residence for illegals who have been here for long periods and provide a path to citizenship for dreamers. The fact the current administration is misusing ICE or any enforcement agency is a reason to vote them out rather than advocat abolishing an agency and losing an election. The far left remains as obtuse as ever and adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
6
Just another example where the fringe elements of the Right and Left are driving the issue. A majority of American citizens want Congress to fix the immigration issue. When Obama and the Democrats had the opportunity to fix the broken system they backed off. This is a good issue for the fringes as it energizes their base.
7
If the democratic party makes 'abolish ICE' a single signature issue then it can expect to get abolished. If it comes up with practical humanitarian solutions to the current border crisis then it could get traction.
If Republicans come across as the party that cares about the safety of the citizens by closing the illegal entry into the country but providing a fair hearing to the asylum seekers and those wanting to enter the country legally, they will provide a clear choice to voters.
As an independent, I think the ICE issue is slippery and making the November 2018 election a referendum on ICE will be a treacherous slippery slope for the democratic party. I remember trying to stand and walk on ice during one Icelandic winter and unless I held on yo something solidly in the ground, I kept slipping. If the democratic party does not have any other solid issues to hold on to, don't be surprised if the blue wave turns out to be a blue debacle.
21
I suggest that Mr. McElwee and many of those whom he interviewed actually look up the functions that ICE is tasked to carry out.
As is typical of people who apparently find it inconvenient to know about their topic before they write about it, Mr. McElwee will learn that most ICE mandated activities are benign and that these activities actually enhance national security.
Since "the truth" generally doesn't fit their narrative, the lay citizen is not informed by our political elite of anything that is potentially contrary to the usual groupthink.
25
Remarks from a column by Zephyr Teachout in The Guardian (6/25/18) are worth considering in this conversation:
"It is not an accident that Donald Trump can use ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as tools of unconstitutional illegal behavior: it is part of the structural flaw of the agencies themselves."
"ICE and CBP are so politicized that they are not credible as law enforcement agencies, and so deeply connected with illegal behavior that they are no longer credible as self-governing agencies. Instead, they have become tools of arbitrary power and cruelty; the opposite of law."
"ICE is stunningly unaccountable, by design, and the horrors that we see today are part of a structural problem that [the administration of] George W Bush created and that we can and must fix."
1
@ernesto
You are right. It isn't ICE that needs to be abolished, it is Donald J. Trump that needs to go.
The Democrats are not getting their TRUE money's worth in the extreme left wing of the party's call to "abolish ICE."
A WSJ/NBC poll this week showed Trump under water by 41-51% on the immigration issue.
But, true to form, Democrats are that soon to be extinct species of political shark that swims AWAY from blood in the water.
They need to go straight at the GOP, and Trump specifically, on their failures to fix the immigration system including but not limited to:
Everything from baby jails to forced orphanings.
Utter chaos on the Southern border.
No security at all on the norther border.
No Mexico paying for the Wall
No Americans paying for the Wall
GOP caucus unable to pass ANY immigration legislation
Trump whip sawing his own party on the issue
ICE hiring and training a complete shambles
The Red Headed Russian sleeping her way through American conservatism and here on a fake student visa.
Cripple Trump enough on immigration and his BASE will seek to impeach him, as Ann Coulter has indicated a few times.
But Dems will continue to engage in political malpractice while wandering in the wilderness.
9
This is just another cautionary tale of how a necessary idea (in this case, reasonably managing immigration) is destroyed when fanatics go too far (mindless enforcement of zero tolerance destroying families, caging children). Most of the time pendulums swing too far in each direction, little by little settling in the center. The Sessions/Trump/Tea Party fanaticism imposed upon ICE has taken it too far, broken its mooring to justice, and may well destroy a good idea.
Life is a series of approximations, until madmen get control and try to impose their new world order on a people, the majority of which don't believe in it. Just wait until Trump is done with our Federal courts, especially the Supreme Court. The right had better get control (in a moderating way) or the country will truly become a hotbed of revolt and revolution.
3
The vast majority of American citizens (legal ones) support the rule of law--including the enforcement of our immigration laws--and law enforcement of all stripes--including ICE.
As we head towards the November midterms, Republican campaign organizers will rightly point out the differences between their candidates and these mindless, misinformed and pollyannaish progressive candidates. Watch for ads--featuring some of the heroes of ICE--as they go about their daily jobs protecting the country.
Fortunately for Conservatives, the left seems committed to riding their open borders, anti-law enforcement candidates into the dust. It appears they would rather stick to their extreme positions, than win elections. It is the perfect confluence of ignorance and arrogance. There's a red wave a'comin'.
28
Democrats - PLEASE abolish "Abolish ICE". The last 21 months have been an emotional nightmare for many of us. We want victory - almost at any cost.
6
This far leftist group (Data for Progress) is advocating eliminating ICE, but is offering nothing to replace it. No plan for orderly immigration.
This is the best news Donald Trump will probably hear about today.
This opinion piece is basically advocating eliminating borders.
What these young white men (go to their website---all of them fit this demographic) in Data for Progress are missing is that many peoples' negativity toward ICE isn't really a negativity toward ICE. Instead, it is a way of expressing negativity toward Trump. If Trump does it or likes it, then many people automatically don't.
But when many Democrats find out what eliminating ICE really means, on its own without the ties to supporting or not supporting Trump, they will vote Republican. You cannot have a country without enforcement of its borders. To do otherwise would create unfathomable chaos.
46
@Dan
Yes, they do have a plan. It's called amnesty for those who are here illegally and open borders in the future.
14
@Dan
We have always had a border control system, but ICE is only 15 years old. Calling to Abolish ICE is not the same thing as calling to open borders.
Meanwhile both parties have essentially abolished borders for the rich and the their money, machinery, and intellectual property.
The ability of a corporation, that was chartered by a U.S. state, then used our publicly trained labor, and our infrastructure (often including publicly financed research, tax breaks, government subsidies for under paid employees, etc.) to just pick up a factory and move the equipment to a foreign country, or move its intellectual property, or even its headquarters to a foreign tax haven, has been far more detrimental to the American worker than immigrants. This is because an immigrant earning money here spends money here, while a factory employing foreigners there spend money there.
Republicans (with the help of centrist Democrats, like the Bill Clinton who signed the Republican NAFTA bill, for example) have been demanding open borders for decades. It was Nixon, Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Bush that opened us up to China, not the far left.
If capital can move freely across borders, but humans cannot, it gives all of the advantages (yet again) to the rich. Freedom for capital is not free trade.
And by the way, the immigrant didn't take your job. Your boss took your job and gave it to the immigrant.
People's negativity toward ICE is driven by the use of ICE by Trump to terrorize families.
1
@Daphne That's a plan for disaster, for quality of life in the US and for its natural environment.
1
"ICE-tasked to enforce the immigration laws of the United States and to investigate criminal and terrorist activity of foreign nationals residing in the United States."
There is nothing in their mission objective that gives them the right to terrorize little children, seperate them from their families, fail to keep track of them and have to have a Judge order this law enforcement agency to return the children to their families.
Some will say "they were just following orders". Others have used that false premise, it didn't work for them and won't work for ICE.
It may not be necessary to abolish, but they sure need new leadership and re-education from the top on down.
4
Go ahead Democrats Support abolishing ICE, loudly and proudly. 2018 will be the year many former Democrats recall that is the year the party left me.
30
This is just one of many reasons why the republicans will maintain both houses this November and Mr. Trump will win in a landslide in 2020. The Democratic Party is now a Leftist party that is completely out of touch with mainstream America. I love it, finally we are seeing the true unhinged Left controlling one of our two major parties. Good Luck!
23
Or, to put it more accurately. The progressive left since 2008 has been taking over the Democrat party. The takeover is almost complete. The more moderate democrat politicians have watched this coming with concern, but were unable to stop it with Obama in office. The older nearer to the center democrat voters are just now realizing what has happened. Though in the middle of the country they knew something was up and voted for Trump.
It's historic to watch the progressive left eat their own party. While the progressive left democrat propaganda machine says this is a good thing, a lot of democrat voters understand that their party is leaving them.
#walkaway
25
@JAMidwest
It's not the progressives. This is were the fringe liberals and corporatists find common ground and progressives like Bernie Sanders, that want sensible immigration for the benefit of people already here, are ignored.
2
I think this will help the Republicans- it's very nonsense oriented and Trump hatred is the main force. This will not play well for us in elections except those where fans of illegal immigration are in the majority. This is will not fare well.
16
"ICE-tasked to enforce the immigration laws of the United States and to investigate criminal and terrorist activity of foreign nationals residing in the United States."
There is nothing in their mission objective that gives them the right to terrorize little children, seperate them from their families, fail to keep track of them and have to have a Judge order this law enforcement agency to return the children to their families.
Some will say "they were just following orders". Others have used that false premise, it didn't work for them and won't work for ICE.
It may not be necessary to abolish the organization, but they sure need new leadership and re-education from the top down.
2
But why stop there? By what universal law does anyone have the right to draw lines to impede another human's freedom of movement: borders. ICE is to borders what a gun is to the police.
By what law does even the Pope have the right to surround himself with lethal killers (the Swiss guards). Are not his disproportionate trappings (like Putin he claims to own none of them) the essence of his danger? Poor Peter did not need high powered assault weapons to protect him (the Swiss guard has weapons that make the AR-15 look like a pop-gun}. Would not disarming the police be the most logical answer to the NFL kneeling movement? ICE is but the icing on the cake here. So lets get to the heart of the darkness: the Pentagon, that pretext of all future wars. How can any future progressive President preside over a complex capable of wiping out all of humanity ten time over, without abandoning his principles, and becoming "like all the rest"? The Pentagon is an extension of the Border, and the Geneva Convention does not make war any less evil. The Left must declare war on War.
2
Those human illegal immigrants are the reason ICE exists: because they bring in the lion's share of illicit heroin, fentanyl and imported as opposed to domestic origin cannabis. I work closely with ICE in my own Federal law enforcement job and see literally thousands of criminal cases a month that have been initiated by ICE's agents and task force officers. Don't forget those of you who ardently wish to throw open the borders to all comers that many of them are criminals. There is no way that ICE will disappear as it's currently constituted without a ruling from the Supreme Court. In other words, not bloody likely.
28
I didn't know that pharma that is responsible for opioid addiction in this country, is dominated by illegal immigrants. What is ICE going do about that?
Organizations dedicated to aiding and abetting law breaking want to abolish law enforcement.
Illegal immigrants are subject to the law and should be deported.
The Democratic Party has lost my vote.
29
The abolish ICE movement is the height of meaningless posturing.
It doesn't mean "open borders". Rather, it means either (a) changing ICE's name; or (b) breaking ICE up into the separate agencies out of which it was formed (INS, Customs, etc.).
I'm for open immigration. However, I could care less if ICE is abolished.
Your article is welcome, and timely, as discrimination of those that may seem or look different, are discriminated against by mostly 'whites', with the arrogant idea that their color gives them the privilege to do as they please. This is tribal of course, what we used to do eons ago, when living in small homogeneous groups to defend each other...while keeping at bay 'the other' for fear of attacks and destruction. This tribalism nowadays is used to exploit 'the other' and deny their value and services to make our own lives more comfortable, a despicable arrogance of sorts, contrary to achieving social justice and some relief from the gross inequality, especially economical, we are living now, under the thumb of a cruel megalomaniac called Donald J. Trump. Strength in numbers is not just a saying, it is real and requires the appreciation of the richness of our diversity and the need for inclusion. No one is advocating the 'free' invasion of foreign hordes into a given sovereign territory. But, at the same time, these United States is a nation made by immigrants (documented or not) (if the cornering of the native, indigenous folks, is not considered; and the African slaves brought against their will). The issue of wanting to abolish ICE has to do with the cruelty demonstrated by it's force thus far. I agree with you that, in addition to acknowledging the huge benefits a new cadre if immigrants provides, the newcomers deserve to be treated with dignity; humanity demands it.
Sure this will happen - if nationwide you get the same 13% turnout as did Ms. Ocasio-Cortez
11
RE: at the border bearing witness to the viciousness of America’s immigration system.
So having borders is vicious? Thank you Ocasio- Cortez (and Sean McElwee) for doing your part to ensure Trump's reelection. He could not spend enough money to get an ad as effective as your radical position.
28
There is no 'power ' in the call to abolish ICE. It is a losing battle cry and November will be the proof of it. 5 billion rapidly reproducing people will continue to create the pressures leading to the call for 'compassionate' immigration policy. Can we take even a fraction of the billions about to be born? No, so maybe we should focus on reducing the birth rate instead.
34
@GregP: I agree that Americans cannot take a fraction of the world's population. Calls to do so will lead to our destruction as a nation and as a culture, and will lead something resembling the third world.
8
@GregP
Thank you. Diminished resources will change our future. Everyone wants to live in America, and obviously everyone can't, so how do we control our population? In science fiction, there would be mandated birth control in order for humans to survive, but suggest limiting the size of families and listen to the screams.
5
Wasn't America built on taking fraction of world population? As far as I can see majority of Americans are descendants of the illegal immigrants who settled here illegally against the will of local population.
I am a lifelong registered Democrat.
“Abolish ICE” is a fool’s gold for the Democratic Party. Please realize that law enforcement at the border is essential to protect American workers from stagnant wage growth.
NAFTA destroyed American manufacturing and “Abolish NAFTA” should be the real war cry of our party.
66
@Conservative Democrat
Free Trade is what has made America Great, and wealthy.
We manufacture more in America today than we ever did before NAFTA, we just do it with fewer workers. That is what is called "progress."
@Conservative Democrat
If it were necessary to separate children from their parents in order to save my job, I'd like to think that I'd quit.
And abolishing NAFTA might cost jobs in agriculture (it's a complicated issue).
Border security can continue without ICE, not only one government agency is responsible for it (it's also a complicated issue).
@Conservative Democrat I believe the Border Patrol enforces the border protection. ICE goes after illegal immigrants and/or target people who look like immigrants in the country. Lots of grey areas there for racist profiling and using power in a cruel way. To be frank this sounds like an absolute mess to me and it needs to be dealt with in some way. The means they are using to enforce the laws are unacceptable.
People often forget that Trump ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000. His sole reason for recent electoral victory is his position on his signature issue of immigration. While many disagree with him on most areas, his position of controlling the borders and illegal immigration is in accord with many US citizens, especially those who actually vote.
Moreover, if you look at elections around the world, such as England, Germany, etc, a controlled border, native citizen first approach has been the driving force to victory. Even moreso in Australia, where the opposing party which was weak on illegal immigration lost for decades, and was finally forced to adapt to a reasonable approach to finally win elections.
As a midwest voter, the abolish ice/pro illegal immigration stance is a virtual golden ticket for republican victory region and a guaranteed loser for the left. Democrats can claim they are not open border but every stance demonstrates the contrary. It seems they haven't learned from their losses and are doubling down on a position which will win them CA, Oregon, etc, which were states they would win anyways. However, they are alienating states they need to win. Trump won MI, WI, PA!
The democrats greatest fear with their immigration stance is the republicans win a supermajority and can change the constitution on birthright citizenship, etc. The left is great in protesting and online social outrage but poor on electoral math and winning elections.
33
I think most Democrats support "controlled borders,' not open borders. Do we not understand the importance of national sovereignty? Other countries do and don't apologize for it. Abolish ICE is a slogan about mechanism, not goals. But it seems to be a veiled call for open borders, and that goal will backfire on Democrats.
60
@KJR*** Mechanism .. yes that's right... But the Republicans will make it about open borders and they could win that argument the way things are.
5
@KJR You'd be wrong about that. They ARE for open borders. Major media outlets like the NYTimes and LATimes can't even bring themselves to say the word "illegal" when discussing the issue. They make no distinctions between immigrant status, and therefore make this citizen vs. immigrant, rather than law abiding vs. law breakers.
CA State Rep, Kevin DeLeon is bidding for Senate. He blatantaly admitted half his family are eligible for deportation because they've used fraudulent documents and stolen ID's.
That gets ANYONE else in federal lockup for 5-10 years.
And yet, here we are with less and less accountability for illegal activity, no matter to what degree.
It's this framework of double standards, and dereliction of enforcement that angers (rightfully), most people.
If it had come from Trump, it would be considered treason.
23
There is a historical and political aspect to ICE.
Nixon and Agnew, like Senator Joe McCarthy before them, appreciated the power that a climate of fear has on getting voters to lessen their economic focus and adopt security concerns. Enemies within gets more adrenaline than economic policy.
The detestable Lee Atwater developed the modern GOP take on race with the infamous Willie Horton ad after Reagan's welfare queen. There is no accident that the middle class is suffering, wages are stagnant and prosperity is consolidated, not shared. That was the plan. Since government was the perceived enemy of wealth, it had to be disdained and weakened. The right will renege when it comes to militaristic expressions. It sells fear too.
That both parties contributed is not surprising. By the 70's the Dems were in a panic over the vast donor support advantage of the GOP. From then on, campaign finance became an arms race. The Clintons insured Wall Street reigned over labor and professionals over workers. The Third Way was merely GOP politics with more social awareness. But it was suburban and urban elite and left the old New Deal beneficiaries to become red state voters.
Like the Progressives of a century ago in the Gilded Age, rank and file Democrats now realize that a political system paid for by the 1% is profoundly undemocratic. We need to come to the rescue of our democratic birthright. It is about time. Our strength is in ourselves and not a TV star turned despot.
9
If Democrats make abolishing ICE a major campaign theme (in most parts of the country), they are giving Republicans their best campaign issue and losing many votes in swing states and among independent voters. What works in a minority district in Queens will not work in vast reaches of the country. Don't do it.
77
That's only true IF "we the people" continue to allow the GOP to define the "messages" and policy ideas of the Democrats, rather than doing some careful fact-checking ourselves - knowing that the GOP has become a completely hollow political party, which gets access to power only because today it's just one huge propaganda machine, producing words and rhetoric alone.
Democrats never had the time nor interest to do so. So there's is no (center)-left equivalent to Fox News or Trump's copy-pasting tweet version of it.
Now it's up to us to stop turning away from crucial policies just because the GOP might distort them in such a way that the words summarizing them start to signify the exact opposite in the heads of many voters.
Yes, abolishing ICE in the meanwhile SOUNDS AS IF it means abolishing US borders and law enforcement.
That's nevertheless totally false, as this article shows. Democrats have NEVER defended the absurd notion of an "open border" (how can you still have a border if it's completely open ... ? Even merely from a logical point of view, it doesn't make any sense). And if you look at who does what in DC, it's clearly Democrats who have been and are the driving force behind real bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, INCLUDING strengthening and improving law enforcement.
Democrats - and as a consequence the majority of Americans - will never win elections as long as we're waiting for "messages" that somehow the GOP will NOT distort.
Truth matters!
2
@Ana Luisa
Lol.
"it's just one huge propaganda machine"
Let's see now:
GOP=Fox News
The Progressive Left=ABC
NBC
CBS
MSNBC
CNN
NPR
I mean. Really?
"Democrats have NEVER defended the absurd notion of an "open border"
It's like you're just making stuff up.
The problem with the dems is that their zaniest, craziest ideas are becoming mainstream. The far left now seems to include almost everyone who isn't a conservative. Ideas like abolishing ICE are simply not going to sell -- even if the point is NOT to have open borders, that will be seen as the intent by most voters.
Sure Repubs have some extremists on the far right, and while they have some influence, I don't believe the far right is characteristic of the entire Republican party. But more and more I hear comments (or read) from people I know that appear to be normal everyday people -- to the extent that can be said of liberals (joke) -- that are extreme in their views and seem to filter everything through a political lens. And it seems impossible to have a discussion with them on any topic that is fact based rather than emotional.
And Ocasio-Ortez won because most voters stayed home. While she seems charismatic, I don't think her nomination is a symptom of anything except voter apathy. And she is the poster child for overwrought emotional politics that are free of any factual basis. The notions that we should abolish our borders, have free medical care and higher education for all are all nice ideas. Wonderful. But they are beyond aspirational. They aren't do-able. We can't make everything free and we can't allow everyone in the US who would like to come.
49
So your idea is that if voters have to choose between totally inhumane and anti-American immigration enforcement habits and replacing them with better (both morally, and from a national security point of view more efficient) alternatives ... Democrats should nevertheless NOT try to campaign on those alternatives, inform people, and try to sign them into law, just because the GOP might in the meanwhile have made people falsely believe that those alternatives are the exact opposite and actually mean open borders and are extremist and "far-left" etc. ... ??
If Democrats would have listened to you, today 20 million Americans would still not have any healthcare and 40,000 Americans would still die each year only because of lack of health insurance, simply because Republicans tried to depict Obamacare as "death panels" ... .
You cannot possibly govern a country in a serious way if you allow one political party to completely distort the truth and then just give up on getting things done that a clear majority in this country want and that are entirely fact-based.
Too many people still care about real rather than fake greatness today.
In the end, the truth always prevails.
As to your idea of "making everything free": there is NO Democrat supporting this. It's just another typical GOP lie.
Making education and HC affordable for instance is what any European country managed to do long ago already. The US is the wealthiest country on earth, so of course we can do so too.
1
Why do you think that these ideas are not doable? Other countries managed to have accessible healthcare and education system that didn't burden people with heavy debt. How did these countries do it? Are they smarter than Americans? I think that is the difference. She believes that America is smart enough to make life in the US better for all, you think Americans are not smart enough to figure out how to do so, and that's why they should stick with status quo.
1
@Ana Luisa
In the United States access to higher education is rationed based on ability to pay. In the rest of the world access to higher education is rationed based on demonstrated ability. A free education for the extremely able is affordable, free education for all, not so much.
1
If the Dems want to commit political suicide, then go ahead and promote abolish ICE . I'm starting to think Dems' immigration policies are purely driven by a narrow view of how they can win votes, rather than what may be best for the country.
Dems need to focus on income inequality, campaign finance reform, reining in corporate power, consumer protection, re-drawing gerrymandered districts, healthcare cost reform. Please focus on causes that will help middle-class American citizens.
90
@georgje eliot The only problem with your argument is that ICE has become a political tool for promoting fear. Like saying the same lies over until accepted, voters can believe what is is truth. Guys dressed for assaults are assumed to be necessary for voters already sold on fear.
If ICE is not abolished, then to undo their current role will require a democratic takeover of government by regular citizens. Until the Democratic Party solves it's donor versus people identity it is a better vehicle to oppose Trump than a real vehicle for democracy like the old Progressive Party where people were more empowered.
I take the long-term view that you do but question how soon "the people" can get government back from fear-supporting donors dismantling middle class supports. ICE serves as the battleground for that larger debate. It doesn't fix the bigger issue of democracy and who does government serve, but I am not so quick to dismiss its symbolism of the battle that is increasingly being engaged.
2
The problem with ICE are the directives coming from Sessions and trump. If those directives were guided by compassion, tolerance and good sense we wouldn't see otherwise solid citizens being ripped from their families. There certainly are bad actors being removed from the country and no one has a problem with that. People who have lived good lives here for years who are simply in technical violation of the law are not the problem.
4
Ocasio-Cortez got less than 16,000 votes in her win over Crowley. The real winner in that primary was apathy, yet article after article, like this one, cites her victory as a major turning point.
Her voice is important, but the suggestion that most Democrats support abolishing ICE is far from the truth. Reforming ICE, yes, but that is far different.
55
It seems like apathy affected mainly Crowley's supporters because her supporters came and voted. So, what you want for party mainstream apathetic democrats that stay home during the election, or left-wing democrats who do vote?
@Native Tarheel The spin on Ocasio-Cortez is unbelievable. In MY Brooklyn district (covers a bit of Queens), Patel ran against a long-timer, Maloney, on pretty much the same platform and he lost.
4
Americans need to understand that as a nation with the largest GDP on the planet, many people will want to come and join us. Our comfortable lifestyle, some which was not earned by us, but rather owed to our great and diminishing natural resources and forefathers, will continue to bring ambitious visitors. We will always need a humane strategy for contending with these folks. ICE was founded on fear of terrorism, and has maintained that same fear, but shifted its focus on a different apparent danger. It should be abolished and replaced with an agency that is built upon a more sophisticated understanding of the issue it is meant to address.
5
In reading this article and the accompanying comments I cannot avoid being amazed at the failure of many to clearly differentiate legal immigration and illegal immigration. I strongly support liberalization of immigration policies that would allow more valuable, contributing people to enter the US. However, I do not support the concept of open borders or simply not enforcing immigration law. I would never vote for a candidate who runs on the overly simplistic slogan “abolish ice” as I would question both the intelligence and judgment of such a candidate.
126
@TW Smith
If you read this article carefully, you'll see that "abolishing ICE" has NOTHING to with open borders or no longer enforcing immigration law - although I have to admit that I too at first associated it with absurd things like that.
It is about starting to enforce immigration law both in a more human/decent AND efficient way.
9
@Ana Luisa You contradict yourself in two sentences..."or no longer enforcing immigration law"... Then you state it's about "enforce(ing) immigration law..." So, which is it? Don't enforce the law, or enforce it how you think it should be done? Laws, by definition, can't work if left subject to emotion. There would be no such thing as law. So, like Ms Cortez, you throw out a concept that is emotionally charged, yet bereft of a lawful solution. She won't go much further in her political career.
1
@TW Smith
Exactly, if you have to read the content of the policy to understand that it isn't bad - then we already lost. "Abolish ICE is a terrible self-inflicted wound for those who want a just and humane immigration system. It must be changed to "Reform ICE" - even if the details of the policy remains the same.
7
Before reading this article I was against abolishing ICE.
Now, I realize that:
1. ICE is a recent invention.
2. It's mainly characterized by inhumane treatment of immigrants.
3. Abolishing ICE does not mean abolishing or opposing immigration law enforcement at all. It means replacing shameful practices, that no American should ever support, with (a) comprehensive immigration law reform and (b) serious and simultaneously COMPASSIONATE immigration law enforcement.
Those are absolutely great and truly inspiring ideas. I applaud Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for having the guts to use the notion of "compassion" here, because indeed, that is what our society needs most today.
Not compassion in the sense of pity (feeling sorry for someone's suffering all while being happy that this isn't happening to us, and imagining that somehow that's because of who we are), but compassion in a deep, spiritual sense, as the ability to open our hearts to the suffering of other people knowing that it could have been us too, the ability to reaffirm our common humanity and interconnectedness, and the desire to help to the best of our abilities - including the respect of our borders and respect of the fact that we need strict immigration laws as we cannot possibly accept billions of suffering individuals to start living in the US.
Trump and the GOP have launched the most immoral government in decades. Let's respond by going back to basic moral values, and have the courage to explicitly fight for them!
30
@Ana Luisa The problem with "Abolish ICE" is that the first message people take from the slogan is the message Republicans benefit from -- it must be about ending border enforcement. If it takes a lengthy NYT op-ed piece to counteract the Republican narrative, Democrats lose on the issue. ICE by any name is only as good or as bad as its leaders and the policies it implements. Just replacing ICE with an agency that has a different acronym fixes nothing and in the meantime hands Republicans an easy issue.
14
@NCSense
Democrats are the only ones proposing fact-based policies for more than a decade now, and of course explaining ANY serious policy means needing at least on NYT page.
To hope that somehow we will be able to save America's greatness through simplistic slogans alone is absurd.
Yes, the GOP wins elections thanks to those slogans. But that's because they've built a huge propaganda machine, Fox News:
1. to feed its audience all the fake news needed 24/7 in order for conservatives in this country to start believing and supporting those slogans, and
2. to systematically distract its audience from the fact that once elected, Republicans cannot turn these slogans into real pieces of legislation precisely because they're so hollow and baseless.
As Democrats want science-based policies, they'll never build any equivalent of Fox News. So contrary to the GOP, Democrats need truly engaged and well-informed citizens before they can win elections and make legislative progress. They even need politically literate citizens, who know that all real, radical progress, in a democracy, is step by step progress, and who have the strength, focus, passion and patience to be in it for the long run.
All these things aren't built through simplistic slogans, AND it's the only way to stop letting GOP lies define Democratic policies in the eyes of voters.
As to your idea that ICE would merely be replaced by a different acronym: any evidence to back up that claim?
@NCSense I had this exact same conversation with my best friend who is a liberal (way more) as am I. She proceeded to explain #abolishice to me even though I understand what it's about.
Totally misses the point that #abolishice doesn't encapsulate what the Dems really mean and all of its nuances if it is not "open borders". And, am I the one that she really has to convince. So done with the ideological posturing by some Dems whether it's my best friend of 20 years or not.
1
Either have fully open borders or fully controlled (which does not necessarily mean 'closed') borders. Can't have it both ways. Like most things in gov't (and life), the devil is in the details. But there is no political will any longer for real governance; only ideological hype.
42
@Unconvinced
Actually, there is no country on planet Earth that has fully open borders or fully controlled ones. The reality is that all countries have something in the middle. We have politics so we can decide where in that middle our policy should be.
2
It is clear ICE needs reform. We must certainly aim to eliminate the racial animus exacerbated by the Trump administration. However, one gets the sense that the "Abolish ICE" movement's true goal is to establish an open borders policy. There is no way in which the majority of Americans will ever agree to this. As a social democrat and a legal immigrant whose naturalization involved multiple visa applications, reviews, interviews, etc. over a twelve year period, I certainly won't.
On a side note, I would not want an influx of non-English speaking Norwegians to begin dominating the demographics, culture and the fabric of the society. Not wanting these changes as a result of mass Hispanic migration into the US is not necessarily racist, either.
46
@Steve
1. Abolishing ICE isn't about open borders at all. As usual, the GOP is spinning Democrats' ideas into the very opposite of what they are, and unfortunately, many Independents and even Democrats then start believing those lies rather than doing careful fact-checking themselves ...
2. Norwegians and people from all countries in the world have been coming to the US for centuries. It's what constantly changed and as such MADE American culture into what it is today.
So what's your problem with Norwegians, actually ... (serious question, no irony nor judgment here)?
1
Steve!!!
You are not helping.
Many citizens have seen ICE in action.
This agency isn’t needed.It was formed for security post 9/11.
Time to say good riddance and NOT because we do not want a pragmatic ,rational immigration policy.
These security guards are out of control.
If you "believe" in this check out *Reader Picks*!
Reforming the way ICE is being used is a good idea.
Consider that we are being trolled, once again. It is no longer possible to point this out without having some silly person think their close study of trollworld entitles them to be an expert.
I am a Democrat, and we need to win. This is bringing us down, please just stop.
http://observer.com/2018/08/russian-trolls-abolish-ice-movement/
"And malicious actors want this drama, because the continued division of America usually benefits them in some way and is detrimental to Americans despite their personal views.
“It is important that we come to see online disinformation not just as a problem of the other ‘side’ but as something that is targeted at all of us,” University of Washington professor Kate Starbird, told Mother Jones.
"For the Macedonian teenagers racking up ad dollars on fake news clickbait, polarization means energized audiences just waiting to click on things. For actors potentially connected to a geopolitical rival, domestic division is a good thing—the Internet Research Agency wants conservatives to think BLM activists are domestic terrorists (they aren’t), and it probably wants other parts of America to think that abolishing ICE would erode the last barrier between the heartland and a massive wave of illegal immigration (it won’t)."
18
@Susan Anderson
I have faith that we can both beat the Russian trolls and get rid of a recent inhumane creation that smacks of Dick Cheney. We just gotta roll up our sleeves and get to work. If the threat of Russian trolls causes us to turn our back on our fellow beings from, for example, Central America, our republic isn't much worth saving.
Courage and conviction are the orders of the day.
2
The U.S. 65-and-over population will nearly double over the next three decades, from 48 million to 88 million by 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That will make us a much older country - 21 percent will be over age 65, up from 13 percent in 2010 and 10 percent in 1970.
But the United States is aging less rapidly than most other major industrialized nations - and that is due, in part, to the influx of young immigrants and their families. We need that trend to continue - not stop - because the old and young are so interdependent.
Simply put, anti-immigrant policy reflects not only a lack of ethics, empathy and compassion - it is founded on bad economics.
Aging United States must get the economics right on immigration(Reuters-9/17)
Enough with the Immigration Boogeyman Narrative!
8
@That's what she said
Bad economics?
That's what many would call an economic model that predicts disaster, if population growth stops anywhere short of infinity.
Seriously, the ratio of retirees to working population has been growing without problem for some time.
From Dean Baker:
"The D.C. fearmongers point to projections showing the number of workers per Social Security beneficiary falling from 2.8 his year to just 2.1 in 2035. But this prospect looks considerably less scary when we consider that the number of workers per beneficiary was 5.1 back in 1960. We have seen this number cut almost in half over the last five decades, yet both workers and retirees have seen substantial increases in their standard of living.
The logic here is simple: Productivity growth has allowed workers to produce far more today than they did in 1960. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, productivity is more than three times as high today as it was in 1960. This means that for every hour worked, a worker in 2014 on average produces three times as much by way of goods and services as did a worker in 1960. This is the reason that both workers and retirees can enjoy higher living standards even though there are fewer workers to support each retiree.
We should expect this to continue to be the case."
http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/time-to-retire-fears-over-ag...
11
@That's what she said
Undocumented workers do not earn enough to even support themselves. Most are paid in cash and off the books. They will not generate the tax revenues necessary to support our elderly - they don’t generate enough tax revenue to pay their own expenses. What they do is depress wages so that legal workers are unable to command living wages.
16
Only leftist Democrats are incapable of differentiating between LEGAL immigrants and ILLEGAL immigrants. Or maybe they just believe the rest of us are too ignorant to see how they intentionally and repeatedly conflate the two.
6
While Ms. Ocasio-Cortez undoubtedly will win her district in November, given Republicans’ traditional cluelessness in NYC and the ethnic composition of that district to which she is well-aligned, she nevertheless doesn’t portend any great shift by Americans regarding views on illegal immigration or ICE. ICE won’t be abolished anytime soon, even if Democrats take the House, which is looking increasingly precarious with every passing day, as analyzed here in the Times, as well.
Abolishing ICE would leave our organized border enforcement crippled. That would be a cave to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s views and those of fellow travelers that we open our borders to unlimited immigration from the south. That’s simply not going to happen. One of the primary reasons Trump was elected and a non-trivial one why we have an undivided Republican Congress WAS the illegal immigration issue, which may have influenced a lot of Democratic votes for Trump in 2016.
Those who may be shifting left are Democrats in any case very unlikely to vote for Republicans anyway. And it likely will energize Democratic voters to vote in the upcoming midterms as much as any other issue – those already energized enough to vote will become more engaged, and those who traditionally don’t vote … won’t.
Sorry to insist on liberals stepping back into reality, but it’s just possible that “the next time Democrats have the power to change policy” may not happen during the lifetimes of those reading this op-ed or this response.
78
@Richard Luettgen
ICE hiring and training is in complete chaos, Southern border security is in complete chaos with neither Mexico nor the GOP caucus providing funding for the wall.
A Red Headed Russian honey pot is seducing American conservatives while here on a fake student visa.
No wonder the lates WSJ/NBC poll had Trump under water on immigration, 41-51% unfavorable.
Time for conservatives to step back into reality and accept they are supporting a turned Kremlin asset in the White House.
Besides, "abolish the EPA/the IRS" has worked well in rallying the conservative base for years.
I don’t think the collective consciousness of the Democratic Party understands what’s going on in America. Trump understands the zeitgeist, which is why he won and will win again in two years. The Democrats are on the wrong side of the immigration issue. Any talk of abolishing ICE is a dog whistle for open borders & a transparent ploy to gain voters.
124
Too bad that this article doesn't acknowledge the fact that it's INDEPENDENTS who'll decide the next election--and most of them do NOT favor the abolition of ICE nor the open borders that would follow, if Dems get their way. Our immigration policy should first and foremost be for the good of AMERICANS, not immigrants and certainly not illegal aliens, particularly as long as we offer welfare and other taxpayer-provided services that we subsidize for low wage workers.
111
@Ali
This Independent agrees!
3
@Ali,
If the Trump election has taught as anything is that election are won by appealing to the extreme. Independents don't exist. Extinct like the dodo. Judging by the contents of the dozens of comments you posted you are not an independent
Those who cry for abolishing ICE never mention the actual numbers of illegal immigrants who are apprehended at the southwest US border. The US Customs website reports that in June 2018 alone, 40,338 individuals, including 9,652 'family units' were prevented from entering illegally. So far this year 286,290 people were caught at this border. Obviously many more were not apprehended.
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration
61
I love columns like this. I'm a Republican. I love the poll question which was asked as if the average voter would have any understanding of the implications of abolish ICE.
I love it when Democrats shoot themselves in both feet.
95
@Dougal E
The sad thing is that everyone believes we should have total control of our borders, and the discussion of how to get that is framed in such a way that it becomes all arguments and foot-shooting.
5
@Dougal E That's exactly what they are doing. Every election I get ready to switch to Dem, and then they pull their usual stunts.(Hillary anyone?) I rarely go through with it.
3
Me too. That’s the main reason I read NYT everyday.
1
"Abolish ICE" elects the GOP.
236
@R. R. Democratic Party leaders are wrong to hail newbies like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon as the future of our party. Ms. O-C, Ms. Nixon and other Democratic Socialists will achieve no more than sporadic wins, and may cost us many seats in the mid-terms and 2020. (Remember Bernie in 2016.)
On July 10 Cynthia Nixon told Politico she is a Democratic Socialist (as is Alexandra O-C). The goals of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won't appeal to most Democrats or any Republicans; two of many examples: (https://www.dsausa.org/where_we_stand#global )
1. "...direct ownership and/or control of much of the economic resources of society by the great majority of wage and income earners." This is plain old Marxism/Communism, where workers own/control the means of production; it hasn't worked elsewhere and won't appeal to US voters.
2. "...massive redistribution of income from corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the public sector, in order to provide the main source of new funds for social programs, income maintenance and infrastructure rehabilitation...." As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
Abolishing ICE, increasing taxes and turning the means of production over to workers are suicidal platform planks for the Democratic Party.
6
@R. R. -
What I see in the comments from many here is the knee-jerk reaction that abolishing ICE means open borders. Apparently it's too much of a mental effort to look at the rest of this opinion piece to see that it calls for real immigration reform as part of the solution to what has become de facto ethnic cleansing.
Those reactions are an indication of just how badly paranoia has infected American politics. It's not really a surprise given the fear-mongering the right has been subjecting the country to for decades to gain power.
People ask how Trump could have gotten elected. The answer is simple. Fear makes people stupid. Q.E.D.
1
@R. R.So your advice is to for Dems to support ICE so that the Dems will win?
1
Please, Democratic Party, please, do not make me vote for President Trump. Please, please, Democratic Party, return to the strong environmental policies of the 1970s, of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, of the zero population growth movement, and of the Democratic Party which at one time would protect low income Americans who worked in construction or in the hospitality industries from illegal workers. Please act to restrict the immigration which has caused the American population to increase from @150 million in the 1950s to over 300 million today. Of course, I might not vote.
137
Nobody can "make you vote for Trump" except you. Don't blame Trump on the Democratic Party either. That's a canard as the French would say .
7
Illegal immigrants compete with low income, low education, native born, especially minorities for blue collar jobs, eg construction, meat packing, auto repair, plus affordable housing, and other social resources. A US Civil Rights Commission Report specifically identifies poorly educated black men as victims. The law of supply and demand dictates that the low income pie gets divided further as you import more low income demographics.
127
John Patt, your claim that immigrants take jobs from other lower income citizens is not borne out by recent experience. Often they do jobs most Americans refuse to seek. in some instances, after my State of Georgia had shut down a seasonal program for foreign guest workers to work in farms, many of those operations failed within the first days of the harvest season. All the non-immigrants picking onions, peaches and other items either quit or could not do the job. The Legislature reconvened for a special session to reestablish the guest worker program because other Georgians were gonna lose jobs and make less because there was no one to do manual labor.
7
@John Patt Why don't you reference any data that supports your claims?
Here, I will help you out:
Find the link here https://research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/51-new-reports-on-the-con...
New York - "If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from New York in 2008, the state would lose $28.7 billion in economic activity, $12.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 137,013 jobs, even accounting for adequate market adjustment time, according to a report by the Perryman Group."
New Jersey - "If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from New Jersey, the state would lose $24.2 billion in economic activity, $10.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 103,898 jobs, even accounting for adequate market adjustment time, according to a report by the Perryman Group."
Pennsylvania - "If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Pennsylvania, the state would lose $5.3 billion in economic activity, $2.3 billion in gross state product, and approximately 27,718 jobs, even accounting for adequate market adjustment time, according to a report by the Perryman Group."
The report provides similar information for every state in the union.
I am sick and tired of reading descriptions of undocumented immigrants as drains on our economies and society. They provide huge cultural and economic benefits that need to be better understood in order to bring our immigration debate into a saner realm.
15
But surely the answer to lack of available agri-labour in a capitalist society is for the employer to pay more in wages, and either pass on a price increase or accept less of a return on invested capital? You appear to regard wages, return on capital, and prices as being fixed, with the only variable being expanding the labour supply to fit. Why is labour subject only to the laws of supply and not to the favourable demand side of the equation?
14
I don't know what is more ironic, that the open border movement taking over the left is going to guarantee continued Republican control of all of the levers of government, or the fact that the left somehow believes it is a winning issue.
207
Those who condemn the concept of abolishing ICE should be reminded that it is actually the Border Patrol, not ICE, who patrol the borders.
21
I have long credited liberal word smiths with a unique talent for "turning a phrase". Take income inequality. Sounds simple. One or more people make less money than one or more other people. The definition and context are left entirely up to the person using the phrase.
Abolish ICE is along the same lines. Following the Presidents method of bargaining, liberals call for abolishment, when a mission rewrite would work more in their favor. If "common sense" immigration were at the heart of the problem, the mission of ICE could change to help all immigrants enter the country, anywhere, anytime.
If you think getting rid of ICE is a good idea, why not other LEOs? Most urban police forces are only empowered and armed to kill people of color.
The left seems afflicted with a personality disorder. "I'm perfectly fine, but my country is messed up. I need to raze the nation to save it." The only problem, criminals and other ne'er do wells don't go to a neutral corner, until everything is sussed out. Things might not be so bad, if there weren't so many imaginary boogeymen.
45
The accusation by the creature that Dems want "open borders" is a give to his base like that of "witch hunt." NO ONE wants open borders but Dems are opposed to the rabid assaults on asylum-seekers and Dreamers; no, Pres. Obama did NOT overreach with that compassionate, welcoming, totally American concept of caring for those in danger in their home countries. And I suspect, some of those who fear, even some Dems, the more visible Democratic Socialist candidates/incumbants, fear the discontinuance of ICE in the same way. But aspects of socialism have always had provisions to help the needy, whether those in poverty, who have lost jobs due to technology, are stigmatized by being members of a minority, and LGBTQ identifiers.
10
@Russell Manning
I keep hearing that Democrats are not for open borders. Please tell me one control of immigration that Democrats are in favor of. I have yet to hear one publicized- I only hear that any control that Trump wants the Dems oppose.
136
@Russell Manning Really? Then state one position they have other than "reforming" border control to allow more illegal aliens to enter the Country? Have they ever stated a limit to that number? NO. Have they admitted that those here illegally have caused enormous social problems and costs? NO. Have they tried to expand the numbers of foreigners admitted under relaxed sanctuary conditions, no matter how distant they may travel? NO. The last election was decided by the question of illegal aliens more than any other consideration, but Democrats and the Left still refuse to believe it.
12
@John Dyer
E verify. Going after people who overstay their visas. I know many liberal people who feel these are fair ways to control immigration.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez objects to ICE, she actually seems to be objecting to its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division. ERO identifies, arrests, and removes aliens who enter the United States illegally. Ocasio-Cortez apparently thinks ERO’s mission should be limited to handing out “notifications to appear” to immigrants apprehended as they cross the border illegally. Illegal border crossers call the notifications to appear “permisos” because they permit the holders to reside into the United States until the date of their immigration/deportation hearings, which are now set years in the future. They know no one will look for them if they don’t show up for the hearings.
But why force illegal immigrants to raft the Rio Grande or trek across the desert? Why not permit migrants without visas to declare their intention of entering the country illegally at legal ports of entry? Because of high demand for permisos, we could automate the process by setting up notifications to appear dispensing machines at the legal ports of entry. This would allow the lines of illegal border crossers at legal ports of entry to move as faster than the lines of legal border crossers because legal border crossers have to show their visas.
23
There is a need to police borders, obviously, but we should also recognize that immigrants, especially those who have undocumented family members or who are undocumented themselves, are in a terribly vulnerable position, which sets them up for abuse at the hands of those in power (and relentless scapegoating by a certain kind of politician). If ICE cannot provide the oversight necessary to prevent abuse, or if it has become infested with xenophobes and power-trippers, then it should be replaced with an agency that can.
Also, immigration laws need a sense of proportion, of the punishment fitting the crime. If circumstances forced your family to sneak into Canada for example, and you were caught, how would you wish to be treated? Personally I'd want to be given a summons to appear in court, and if I lost my case, expelled promptly and humanely. I would not expect to be thrown into a prison camp indefinitely, separated from my family, denied legal representation, or abused. I would only expect to be arrested if I fail to show up in court or refuse an expulsion order. Do unto others...
10
@M.
So, you believe the criminal should determine what punishment is appropriate?
4
@M.-- Deportation is a CIVIL REMEDY for a civil infraction, not a "punishment". It sets things back to what they were before the illegal alien broke the law. It's on a par with kicking a gate crasher out of a party. Wouldn't we all like to "crash" a party and live there forever--have a "better life"?
You might also note your confusion. It's Customs and Border Protection who are detaining illegal aliens who sneak into the US. But calling for the abolition of Customs and Border Protection would all too clearly show the real aim of those wanting to abolish ICE--that anyone who gets here, gets to stay here. Heck, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary, and Bernie have said they believe that.
5
Implementation of immigration policy has always been messy--conditions at the border and other ports of entry, discretionary authority exercised by federal officials, and well-meaning but ineffective policy. However, the movement from INS to ICE within the context of the new bureaucracy of Homeland Security in 2002 may have been effected without understanding the implications. The ability to separate children from immigrant parents who are not otherwise criminals is jarring and probably useless.
The federal government has moved immigration authorities around before and it can again. Perhaps the time has come to reformulate a new INS. I hope that the discourse about dissolving ICE opens a fairer and more effective strategy to deal with all aspects of immigration, placing human dignity at the center.
Clearly, something has to be done about US immigration policy.
8
@Babs--- But the parents were criminals--they sneaked into the US illegally, and only after doing that did they ask for asylum. THAT is why the adults are being held. Entering illegally is a federal crime punishable by six months in prison, a fine, and followed by deportation.
The "thing" that has to be done about US immigration policy is simply to enforce our laws, and do so evenhandedly.
45
@Ali Thank you for your comment. A few clarifications are in order. First, the vast majority of immigrants without documents in the United States are visa overstays, meaning they may not have crossed the border, legally or otherwise.
Second, your point about enforcing immigration policy with an even hand is correct and appropriate. That would also mean charging all employers who employ immigrants without authorization to work.
Third, it also means that anyone can request asylum at a port-of-entry without entering the country, as stated in US law. It is not clear that happened in this case.
Again, enforcing immigration law is complicated and messy.
1
ICE has been in existence since 2002. Under President Obama no one was calling for the end of ICE. The problem isn't ICE per se, but the directives being given to ICE by Trump and Sessions. Even if congress stopped funding ICE, Trump and Session would find new ways and use different agencies to accomplish their goals. We don't need to abolish ICE, because after all we do need some kind of border security. What we need is a different administration.
37
@Rufus W. How was America able to survive from 1776 to 2002 without ICE??
The article cites a survey that asked, “Would you support or oppose defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and enforcing immigration violations like other civil infractions?” However, a civil infraction is a violation less serious than a misdemeanor, but violations of immigration law are criminal misdemeanors or felonies, not civil infractions
Crossing the border illegally is a criminal offense punishable by fines and/or up to six months incarceration for a first offense, which makes it a misdemeanor. A second violations is a criminal offense punishable by up to two years incarceration, which makes it a felony. Millions of illegal immigrants are also guilty of more serious crimes, such as working without authorization, identity theft, presenting false documents, and posing as U.S. citizens to gain employment or social services. All of these are criminal offenses.
In practice criminal and civil charges are almost always dropped against illegal immigrants who agree to voluntary deportation. The law that counts is Section 237 (a)(1)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which says: "Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable." So, arguing whether illegal immigration is a criminal or civil violation is pointless. All aliens present in the United States in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act or any other law are subject to deportation.
98
@William Case--Deportation is also a CIVIL REMEDY, not a punishment. It sets things back to what they were before the illegal alien broke the law. Those who try to trivialize illegal entry also tend to treat deportation as a "punishment", not the civil remedy it is.
27
@Ali
I agree that deportation is not punishment for a crime. Criminal charges are almost always dropped when illegal aliens accept voluntary deportation.
1
Banning Ice , moving too far left is political suicide.
Frankly I am concerned that the political junkies are consumed with moving to the left or the right creating a profound division in the country and we are now fully engaged in a most uncivil war.
The direction we should be moving in is FORWARD.
we need to reduce income inequality by introducing fairness into the tax system.
Restoring the higher 2017 tax rates for the top earners earners,eliminating tax concessions for that group such as carried interest and using the resulting tax savings to reduce rates for the lowest earners including payroll taxes.
Ensure all Corporations pay the effective tax rate of 21per Cent , use extra revenue to reduce debt
Instead of threats by tariff impose a manageable infrastructure tax on all imports the justification is that it benefits all importers .4 percent will raise some $150 billion a year to invest in our crumbling infrastructure,to help industries such as steel ensure infrastructure investment uses only USA products.
Focus our education on technology Protect our environment, renewable energy
Health Care Is a right . We must enable all to have cover at reasonable premiums.Add a public option for those who need it using the Medicare infrastructure and the subsidies currently available.
Reduce byprescription drug prices to European/ Canadian/ Japanese levels.Put in place a panel of true experts to formulate a health care system for all at lower costs .
33
I'm in favor of abolishing ICE and in support of immigration enforcement with far greater respect for human dignity, but still I'd take strong issue with your concluding remarks: "For the most part, though, we have seen immigrants as an other to be controlled and understood these “others” as a threat: of crime, of terror, of economic dislocation." I believe better said, we always have had split opinions including those you summarize, too often exploited in the worst way by politicians, alongside far more favorable views. Those words on the statue of liberty have meant something real and foundational, and have been a point of pride, to a great many Americans, even during times when xenophobia prevailed. We are at a low point, and there was never a time when all was right in the immigration system or the immigrant experience, but we also should not fail to recognize our successes in taking in and accepting immigrants. I know a great many of them, ranging from laborers with sketchy immigration status to university undergraduate and graduate students I teach and professors who are my colleagues. Most of them marvel at how well almost everyone around them accepts them, up to and including welcoming them into the families whose sons or daughters they marry. Acknowledging our successes is as important as admitting our failures. It shows that recovery from a time like our present is entirely possible and that we are capable of so much better.
8
What does abolish ICE really mean?
If it means not enforcing any immigration laws, or that anybody who gets beyond our border is home free...
I think that sounds crazy.
195
That's not what it means. We had immigration laws before ICE and we'll have them if it's abolished.
However most people will believe that it means Dems favor open borders and hand another election to the Republican Party-before-country.
15
@Talbot
What does abolish ICE really mean?
ICE is now in every state and has very little oversight. It is a SWAT team that terrorizes families. It was developed in 2003 as part of the militarization of the police-surveillance state designed to keep citizens in line - and not as a defense against "terrorists," which was the pretext.
There is no immigration crisis. In fact undocumented immigrants are more law abiding than citizens and pay much more in taxes than they get back in services.
They do the jobs Americans do not want like roofing, harvesting, and cleaning rooms.
The net flow of undocumented immigrants has been negative - back south - over the border since 2009, due to family reunification and better jobs (from US outsourcing) which has depressed housing prices in border areas.
We did fine without ICE prior to 2003. If you think the country needs them, maybe you will change your mind when they break down your door some night and drag away your family.
The above is why Abolish ICE is catching on with informed citizens who have stopped believing everything the government says.
8
@Sneeral One can have all the immigration laws in the world and if they are toothless in enforcement then they are all meaningless. Frankly, the true solution is to make E-verify mandatory for all employers and then phase in a guest worker program.
So, we need to juxtapose the author's comment:
" My think tank, Data for Progress, which tracks the phrase “Abolish ICE” on Twitter, has seen a deep level of engagement on this issue. There has been a more than fivefold increase in tweets containing the phrase “abolish ICE” from the first five months of the year to June and July. "
with E. J. Dionne's information:
" Thus, some of the phony sites Facebook uncovered that were putatively “left-wing” highlighted themes related to immigration (amplifying the “abolish ICE” message) and race (calls for counterprotests to a white-supremacist demonstration scheduled for Aug. 11 and 12 in Washington). Put simply: The more we hate each other, the better it is for our enemies. "
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-working-with-the-trolls...
Russian manipulation of wedge issues is now a fact of life.
59
@R. Law Thank you! This “Abolish Ice” mantra stinks of Russian propaganda.
I’ve voted dem in every election in the 28 years I’ve been voting. Some high-priority issues to me are:
1. Addressing climate change.
2. Zero pop growth globally (via education, birth control, maybe financial incentives).
3. High quality schools. Low-cost college or trade schools, as appropriate.
4. Low-cost health care for all in the U.S.; control prescription drug costs.
5. Fair wages across the board. Better support for the middle class & working parents.
6. Freedom to be yourself. Equal treatment regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, etc. Respect each other’s choices in life.
7. Gun control.
8. Decriminalize drug posession & use. Long-term incarceration should be for violent offenders.
Illegal immigrants only make the list in the sense that I’d like to see them all deported. They’re EVERYWHERE; you hear more Spanish at the playground than English. (The parents are usually not bilingual - we try to say hello, but get confused looks in reply.)
My son attends school in his dad’s school district across town because he has autism & ADHD, and the local schools are inundated with ESL students. Kids with disabilities lose out. (And, in our case, we’re stuck with a drive of 45-70 minutes each way.)
The traffic is insane, and of course illegal immigrants don’t pay for car insurance, unlike the rest of us. Housing prices, esp apartments, are through the roof - if you can find one.
9
Abolish ICE and then what? Have no immigration enforcement? This is the one area where the Democrats have gone too far left and, with some justification, get criticized for being more focused on the plight of foreigners than U.S. citizens. A winning issue they'd be smart to campaign on is right in front of them: income inequality, falling wages, and the growing plutocracy running the country. Their position on immigration is too divisive, but income inequality is an issue that affects everyone and could unite Americans of all races, backgrounds, and ethnicities. Democrats would be smart to campaign on it--if the Wall Street wing of their party will let them.
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@Jon--Income inequality is in part created by immigration, legal and illegal, of unskilled, uneducated low wage workers. Same with the increase in poverty, with the addition that the presence of immigrants and illegal aliens also drives down wages for low wage citizens, if they get jobs at all. I grew up as a labor Democrat, and it amazes me that Democrats seem to have forgotten the law of supply and demand applies to wages as well as the prices of goods.
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@Jon
We have always had immigration enforcement, but ICE is only 15 years old, so your logic does not hold.
We also have open borders: for the rich. The rich are free to move themselves, or their money, factories, machinery, intellectual property (including U.S. patents), and even their corporate headquarters and personal tax status to foreign countries.
The rich are free to move the productive capacity of the USA to foreign countries, straight across the border, just by filling out a form.
This open border policy for the rich and their businesses is the far larger cause of the stagnation of American wages than illegal immigration.
An illegal immigrant may work for $5/hour, but a worker at a (previously American factory) in a third world country may make $5/day.
It is Republicans (and a few centrist Democrats) that demand "unfettered free trade" for the global trading system. If capital (75% owned by the global 1%) is free to move to the countries with the lowest wages, and least protections for workers, consumers and the environment, then they often betray the country that helped them become rich enough to move and take productive capacity to another country.
Meanwhile, workers are stuck behind borders, slashing our ability to go where the productive capital is. This is a manipulation of markets and governments by big money donors.
We need to carefully create a fair trade system that balances the needs of companies, workers, consumers, and the Earth we live on.
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@Jon: yup...you got it. Back to the "free for all" of letting illegals swarm into the country and steal the jobs of citizens, with NO REPERCUSSIONS and virtually no chance of deportation -- while laughing at our laws and marching in the streets, waving little Mexican or Guatemalan flags.
Once again....Dems will destroy their chances, by insisting on an identity group (that isn't even AMERICAN) and ignoring health care, JOBS, infrastructure, energy, global warming, inequality.....literally every issue that really matters to people....to favor their prized illegal aliens.
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What do they intend, the anti-ICE activists?
1. To eliminate the violence and abuse committed by ICE agents?
2. For President Trump to stop using it as an arm of his anti-immigrant (and probably anti POC) election strategy?
3. For people illegally in the US to remain in the US?
4. To legalize not only those already in the US, but those to come?
If it's the first two, a good many Americans agree.
If it's the second two, the call to abolish ICE is a thinly veiled call to either ignore or legalize such immigrants already here.
If it's the last one, this is a call for open borders.
ICE activists owe it to the compassionate Americans who sympathetic with their cause to be straight about this. Otherwise their campaign could be a stalking horse, using our compassion to achieve an end only a handful want.
And the GOP will certainly say this is just a call for open borders. We need to shut that down over the next month so it has no impact on the election.
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@Robert
The GOP lies constantly. let them say what they will. Hit them head-on and may the best man win.
Don't adjust your strategy because of what they might say
if you want to keep your integrity.
Don't let them set the agenda.
ICE is like fire, you can use it or abuse it. Same with FBI, CIA and indeed the government.
When Reagan said government is the problem and simple minded people believed in this kind of sloganeering, generations have been paying for it since.
Extremism is appealing because people don't have the think. The right said the left is to blame and the left branded every rich person is a plutocrat.
Finding a scapegoat is easy, whether it is "illegal alien murderer" or "abusive border agent," but seeing the world more than black and white is hard
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@Bos--The Obama administration went to the other extreme, and didn't deport anyone other than violent criminals--and even then, deportations were way down in his last year. Meanwhile, on the border, agents were under orders with the Morton Memo not to detain pretty much any illegal alien, even those merely claiming to be Dreamers or the parents of Dreamers. Even illegal aliens who had had due process and had been ordered deported and who were on their way home with tickets they paid for themselves were allowed to remain.
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@Bos
RE: When Reagan said government is the problem and simple minded people believed in this kind of sloganeering, generations have been paying for it since.
No experienced people know bureaucrats are the problem.
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When I first heard the cries, Abolish Ice," by the more progressive and younger cohort of Democratic candidates, my immediate thought was, uh oh, please don't blow it in these midterms.
But the more this cause is taken up by more senior Democrats and articles like this one position the issue within the framework of a more humane immigration reform package, the more I understand it.
God knows that under the Trump Administration, ICE has become more menacing, aggressive, and proactive, lying in wait to pounce on immigrants based on their looks.
During this particularly brutal perod of zero tolerance and family separations, I've often felt ICE was showing us the beginnings of a police state.
The one caveat for young candidates would be to make sure you say how you envision comprehensive immigration reform and how the role of ICE would have to be totally changed--e.g., more focus on helping potential refugees/immigrants and and humane treatment versus chasing them down and using violent arrest tactics that allow those with racial animus to be needlessly cruel.
For me the last straw was putting babies in cages. Republicans would do well to stop demonizing immigrants because the president does, or they just might lose more Congressional seats than they banked on.
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@ChristineMcM--ICE wouldn't be "chasing them down" if sanctuary cities and states were cooperating in turning over illegal aliens at jails and courthouses. But these cities and states are not, which means that ICE goes into the streets to pick up aliens. You might also note that ICE mainly picks up the one million illegal aliens who have already had due process, were ordered deported, and who ignored that court order. What happens to Americans who ignore court orders? My nephew ignored an order to pay child support and the sheriff showed up at his grandmother's looking for him. Why should illegal aliens be "special"?
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@ChristineMcM: "more focus on helping potential refugees/immigrants and and humane treatment versus chasing them down "
Potential refugees/immigrants, would that include illegals who get caught and cry out "Refugee!".
Or would it mean staffing recognized POEs to the level that initial hearings for refugee status can be held before the border jumpers enter the US?
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@Ali There is a new "culture" surrounding the immigration issue that sees immigrants seeking a better live as uniformly evil, largely based on the color of their skin. Never has the issue been so inflamed than under Donald Trump.
You don't live at the border, nor do I, but we have radically different views on the value of immigrants to our nation as a whole.
I urge you to read an excellent article in today's Boston Globe Magazine, that expresses the views of a Nigerian immigrant in Boston. She points out that the main goal of Republicans is to make immigrants scapegoats--which is why comprehensive immigration reform has always failed, not because of Democrats, but because of the GOP.
It serves a purpose--one that appeals to the worst in ugly emotions. It didn't used to be this way--check out this perspective, and you will see what Trump is "getting out of this". It's what I object to most--and if you read my post carefully, I personally am not calling for ICE to be abolished but to be humanized.
www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2018/08/03/foreigner-view-america-immigrati...
The problem is NOT that ICE exists. One must have such a department. The problem is the polities ICE officials are directed to do by the Trump Administration.
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@JKA I have long seen ICE as the beginning of a police state to which ChristineMcM refers above. I would have an issue with any federal employee who is willing to follow an inhumane and destructive policy of family separation. The fact that they did their jobs without a whimper tells me a lot about who they are. At some point their jobs can be expanded to detain vegetarians or the out group of the moment. Eichmann was just doing his job right? Yet the fact is that many of these families have very good reasons to request asylum which are legal issues that should be addressed rapidly while families are detained in protective custody together.
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@Suzanne Wheat-- I have a problem with letting parents escape prosecution because they break the law with their kids along with them. Here, parents who took their kids shoplifting with them at the local Walmart were jailed, and had the kids taken away and put into foster care. Why is it any different for illegal aliens who enter this country illegally, a federal crime punishable by six months in prison? The only problem I have with Trump's actions is that they did a poor job of keeping track of the kids and who/where their parents were.
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