‘Abolish ICE’ messaging is back. Is it any more likely this time?

WASHINGTON— “Abolish ICE.”

Democratic lawmakers and candidates across the country are increasingly returning to the phrase, which became popular during the first Trump administration, as they respond to that administration’s coercive immigration enforcement tactics.

The fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis this month sparked immediate outrage among Democratic officials, who have proposed a variety of oversight demands — including disbanding the agency — to rein in what they see as hostile and sometimes illegal tactics.

Resurrecting the slogan is perhaps the riskiest approach. Republicans seized the opportunity to portray Democrats, especially those in vulnerable seats, as extremists.

“If their answer is to ‘defund ICE,’ we’ll be happy to fight that fight any day of the week,” said Christian Martinez, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. The group has issued dozens of press releases in recent weeks accusing Democrats of wanting to abolish ICE; even those who do not make a direct statement using this expression.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) amplified that message Wednesday, writing on social media: “When Democrats say they want to abolish or defund ICE, what they’re really saying is they want to return to the Biden administration’s open border policies. The American people have resoundingly rejected that idea in the 2024 election.”

The next day Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) said “Repeal the ICE ActHe stated that Good’s killing “proves that ICE is out of control and beyond reform.” The bill would strip the agency of “non-essential” funding and direct other assets to the parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

Many Democrats calling for the complete elimination of ICE come from the progressive wing of the party. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said in a television interview that the agency should be shut down because its agents’ actions were “racist” and “thuggish.” “If Trump’s ICE is shooting and kidnapping people, then abolish it,” said Jack Schlossberg, who is running for a House seat in New York.

Other leading progressives stopped short of saying the agency should be disbanded.

A pair of protesters held signs Friday at a rally in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles honoring people detained by ICE or killed in the process.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who was forcibly handcuffed and taken away at a news conference hosted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last year, joined a protest in Washington to demand justice for Good, saying “it’s time to take out ICE and CBP,” referring to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said on social media: “This is a moment when we must all be strong to push back against an agency that is now out of control.” “We must say loud and clear that ICE is not welcome in our communities.”

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) said Democrats who want to abolish ICE “want to go back to the Biden administration’s open border policies.”

(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

Others have seen negotiations over the annual Homeland Security budget as a leverage point to include demands such as requiring federal agents to remove their masks and turn on their body-worn cameras while on duty, as well as calling for the prosecution of agents who commit crimes on the job. Seventy House Democrats, including at least 13 from California, supported a measure to impeach Noem.

Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Diego), who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, said his focus is not on dismantling the agency he believes has “significant responsibility” but has been sidetracked by Noem.

He said Noem should be held accountable for her actions through congressional oversight hearings, not impeachment — at least not while Republicans are in control of the hearings because he believes House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would make a “ridicule” of them.

“I will use the appropriations process,” Levin said, adding that he will “continue to focus on guardrails regardless of the rhetoric.”

Democratic political strategist Chuck Rocha said Republicans are using abolitionist rhetoric as a scare tactic to distract from the rising cost of living, which remains another key concern for voters.

“They hope to distract [voters] ‘Of course we’re going to make the economy better, but these Democrats are still crazy,’ he said.

Dozens of Angelenos and D.C. area organizers, along with local activists, gathered outside the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. Democrats have struggled for years to put forward a unified vision on immigration, one of the key issues that propelled President Trump to return to the White House.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Democrats have struggled for years to put forward a unified vision on immigration, one of the key issues that propelled President Trump to return to the White House. Any deal to increase guardrails on Homeland Security faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Congress, leaving many proposals years away from being implemented. Even if Democrats manage to block the annual funding bill, the agency still has tens of billions of dollars from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Still, stray raids, violent clashes with protesters, and detentions and deaths of U.S. citizens and immigrants have increased the urgency felt by many lawmakers to do something.

Two centrist groups last week released memos written by former Homeland Security officials under the Biden administration urging Democrats to avoid polarizing language and instead direct their anger at specific reforms.

“Any call to abolish ICE risks squandering one of the clearest opportunities in years to deliver meaningful reform of immigration enforcement while giving Republicans exactly the fight they want,” the authors of a memo from the Washington-based think tank wrote. Third Way.

“Advocating abolishing ICE is tantamount to advocating for a halt to enforcement of all our immigration laws in the interior United States, a policy stance that is both fundamentally wrong and at odds with the American public on this issue,” wrote Blas Nuñez-Neto, a senior policy researcher at the new think tank. Projector Institute he was previously assistant secretary of Homeland Security.

About 46 percent of Americans say they support the idea of ​​abolishing ICE, while 43 percent oppose it. YouGov/Economist poll It was published last week.

Sarah Pierce, a former policy analyst at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and co-author of the Third Way memo, said future polls may show less support for dismantling the agency, especially if the issue is framed as a choice between options that include reforms such as banning agents from wearing masks or requiring the use of body cameras.

“There will no doubt be other tragedies, and with each one comes the growing push to take an extreme stance like abolishing ICE,” he said.

Laura Hernandez, executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, a California-based organization that advocates for closing detention centers, said the growing number of lawmakers calling for the abolition of ICE is long overdue.

“We need lawmakers to use their power to stop military raids, close detention centers, and shut down ICE and CBP,” he said. “This violence that people are seeing on television is not new; it is literally engraved in DHS’s DNA.”

Representative Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) introduced the “Ice Removal Act.”

(Paul Sancya / Associated Press)

Cinthya Martinez, a UC Santa Cruz professor who has studied the movement to abolish ICE, noted that it stems from the movement to abolish prisons. While some have likened immigration agents to modern-day immigration agents, he said the removal part has been watered down by mainstream politicians. slave patrols.

Martinez said his goal is more than just getting rid of one institution or redirecting its duties to another. He noted that in addition to ICE agents, Border Patrol, FBI and ATF agents were also present.

“A lot of people forget that abolishing prisons means abolishing prison systems altogether. This comes from a Black tradition that says prisons are a continuation of slavery,” he said.

But the movement to abolish ICE among mainstream politicians around 2018 was always about having effective and humane immigration enforcement, not about having no enforcement at all, said Peter Markowitz, a law professor and co-director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo School of Law.

“But it failed because it didn’t have an answer to the policy question: If not ICE, then what?” he said. “Hopefully we’re in a different position today.”