WASHINGTON- “Abolish ICE.”
Democratic lawmakers and candidates for public office across the country are increasingly returning to the phrase, popularized during the first Trump administration, as they react to this administration's forceful immigration enforcement tactics.
The shooting death of Renee Nicole Good, 37, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent this month in Minneapolis sparked immediate outrage among Democratic officials, who proposed a variety of oversight demands, including abolishing the agency, to curb tactics they view as hostile and sometimes illegal.
Resurrecting the slogan is perhaps the riskiest approach. Republicans took the opportunity to paint Democrats, especially those in vulnerable seats, as extremists.
An anti-ICE activist in an inflatable costume stands next to a person holding a sign during a protest near Legacy Emanuel Hospital on January 10 in Portland, Oregon. The rally follows the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, as well as the Jan. 8 shooting of two people in Portland by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
(Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images)
“If their answer is to dust off 'defund ICE,' we'll be happy to take up 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 have not made direct statements using the phrase.
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) amplified that message Wednesday, writing on social media that “When Democrats say they want to abolish or defund ICE, what they're really saying is that they want to return to the Biden administration's open border policies. The American people resoundingly rejected that idea in the 2024 election.”
The next day, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) introduced the “Abolish ICE Act,” stating that Good’s murder “demonstrated that ICE is out of control and beyond reform.” The bill would terminate the agency's “unobligated” funding and redirect other assets to its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.
Many Democrats calling for a 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 abolished because the actions taken by its agents are “racist” and “dishonest.” Jack Schlossberg, candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives from New York, said that “if Trump's ICE is shooting and kidnapping people, then abolish it.”
Other prominent progressives have stopped short of saying the agency should be dismantled.
A pair of protesters held signs in memory of people who were arrested by ICE, or died in the process, at a demonstration outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles on Friday.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who last year was forcibly handcuffed and removed from a press conference hosted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, joined a protest in Washington to demand justice forever, saying, “It's time to take out ICE and CBP,” referring to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“This is a time when we all have to be forceful to make sure we are pushing back on what is right now an agency that is out of control,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said on social media. “We have to say loud and clear that ICE is not welcome in our communities.”
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) said Democrats seeking to abolish ICE “want to return to the Biden administration's open border policies.”
(José Luis Magaña / Associated Press)
Others have seen negotiations over Homeland Security's annual budget as a leverage point to incorporate their demands, such as requiring federal agents to remove their masks and turn on body cameras when on duty, as well as calling for agents who commit crimes on the job to be prosecuted. Seventy House Democrats, including at least 13 from California, backed a measure to impeach Noem.
Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Diego), who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, said his goal is not to eliminate the agency, which he believes has an “important responsibility” but has been led astray by Noem.
He said Noem should be held accountable for her actions through congressional oversight hearings, not impeachment — at least not while Republicans were in control of the proceedings — because he believes House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would “mock” them.
“I'm going to use the appropriations process,” Levin said, adding that he would “continue to focus on safety barriers, regardless of the rhetoric.”
Chuck Rocha, a Democratic political strategist, said Republicans seized on abolitionist rhetoric as a scare tactic to distract from the rising cost of living, which remains another top voter concern.
“They hope to distract [voters] saying, 'Sure, we're going to get better in the economy, but these Democrats are still crazy,'” he said.
Dozens of Angelenos and organizers from the D.C. area, along with local activists, demonstrated in front of the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. For years, Democrats have struggled to present a unified vision on immigration, one of the main issues that earned President Trump a return to the White House.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
For years, Democrats have struggled to present a unified vision on immigration, one of the main issues that earned President Trump a return to the White House. Any deal to increase national security barriers faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Congress, leaving many proposals years away from fruition. 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.
Still, the roving raids, violent clashes with protesters, and arrests and deaths of both U.S. citizens and immigrants increased the urgency many lawmakers feel to do something.
Two centrist groups released memos last week written by former Homeland Security officials during the Biden administration urging Democrats to avoid polarizing language and instead channel their outrage into specific reforms.
“Every call to abolish ICE risks squandering one of the clearest opportunities in years to secure meaningful immigration enforcement reform, while giving Republicans exactly the fight they want,” wrote the authors of a memo from the Washington-based think tank Third Way.
“Advocating for the abolition of ICE is tantamount to advocating for stopping the enforcement of all of our immigration laws within the United States, a policy position that is both flawed on its merits and contrary to American public opinion on the issue,” wrote Blas Núñez-Neto, a senior policy researcher at the new think tank Searchlight Institute, who was previously deputy secretary of Homeland Security.
About 46% of Americans said they support the idea of abolishing ICE, while 43% oppose it, according to a YouGov/Economist poll released last week.
Sarah Pierce, a former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy analyst and co-author of the Third Way memo, said future polls could show less support for abolishing the agency, particularly if the question is framed as a choice between options that include reforms such as banning officers from wearing masks or requiring the use of body cameras.
“There is no doubt that there will be more tragedies and with each one of them the effort to adopt an extreme position like abolishing ICE will increase,” he said.
Laura Hernández, executive director of Immigrant Freedom, a California-based organization that advocates for closing detention centers, said the surge in lawmakers calling for abolishing ICE is long overdue.
“We need lawmakers to use their power to stop militarized raids, close detention centers, and we need them to shut down ICE and CBP,” he said. “This violence that people see on television is not new, it is literally built into the DNA of DHS.”
Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) introduced the “Abolish ICE Act.”
(Paul Sancya/Associated Press)
Cinthya Martínez, a professor at UC Santa Cruz who has studied the movement to abolish ICE, noted that it arises from the movement to abolish prisons. The abolition part, he said, is watered down by mainstream politicians, even as some compare immigration agents to modern-day slave patrols.
Martínez said the goal is more than simply getting rid of one agency or redirecting its functions to another. He noted that along with the ICE agents there have been agents from the Border Patrol, the FBI and the ATF.
“A lot of people forget that prison abolition means completely abolishing prison systems. It comes from a black tradition that says prison is a continuation of slavery,” he said.
But Peter Markowitz, a law professor and co-director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo Law School, said the movement to abolish ICE around 2018 among mainstream politicians was always about having effective and humane immigration law enforcement, not having any.
“But it failed because it didn't have an answer to the following political question: If not ICE, then what?” said. “I hope we are in a different position today.”
