During the agents’ violent attack on a delivery worker Saturday morning in DC, bystanders repeatedly demanded the agents share their badge numbers. One of them—his face fully obscured by a black balaklava—eventually shot back, “Do I have to answer to you?”
“You guys are ruining this country. You know that, right?” one bystander said to the agents at one point during the incident. An agent, ironically clad in a rainbow face mask, replied “Liberals already ruined it.”
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Last week on stage at the Netroots conference in New Orleans, I spoke with Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL) about ICE: specifically that she believes it should be abolished. It’s a stance that’s considered far left, but after witnessing ICE and other federal agents in DC this week, abolishing ICE should be the baseline Democratic position.
“ICE is a terrorist organization,” Ramirez told me. “It needs to be defunded and needs to be abolished.”
Maybe I’m in the minority (heh) but I think that ICE shouldn still be a thing but should not be a federal agency. Maybe a sub division of a state trooper or county sheriff department.
Right… Everyone knows that local police and sheriffs are shining examples of accountability and restraint…
You’re right. What might be another option rather than shutting it down outright? Or if you do strongly feel that way, what should be done about illegal immigration? How can we either speed up the approval process or allow workers to work and taxes get paid?
Immigration is the most limited it’s been in US history, accounting to somewhere around 2,000 legal immigrants annually. We could start by raising that cap. If your parents or grandparents immigrated to the US before roughly 50 years ago, they were “illegal” immigrants. There was no such distinction until fairly recently. Anybody who immigrated through Ellis Island would be considered illegal today.
ICE is completely unnecessary. It’s only been around for about two decades - I’m roughly twice as old as that branch of the government. The same with the NSA. Both are largely security theatre started post-9/11 that are ineffectual at the jobs that they supposedly were created to do.
The last administration came up with a great solution that would have actually worked (no, I will not summarize it in a lemmy comment, it was nuanced and well thought out) but the Republicans blocked it because they don’t want working, humane solutions. They just want slaves.
Immigration and customs are federal issues, not state issues, no matter how you slice it.
The problem isn’t that there exists an organization to enforce, but the entirety of its approach (“find people to kick out / take to concentration camps”). Within the framework we have today, something like a non-citizen being convicted of a crime (handled by local/state) being handed off to ice to deport to the appropriate country of their residence? Sure.
But also borders are pretty stupid if a lot of the other stupid stuff around it goes away too.
Thanks for the thoughts and information in your post. Those are some valid points.
They’re already under the Department of Homeland Security I’d imagine. I guess I don’t really have a better answer. I feel like the department needs to exist but not to this extent. Kind of like how the FBI doesn’t do patrol work, then maybe ICE should handle it only after it’s been an identified issue or an established case.
Thanks again for making it a conversation. I don’t know everything and I’m not afraid to say it.
What does ice do that other, less militarized, agencies can’t already do?
Nothing.
Before DHS is was handled by the treasury, labor, and justice Dept’s (moved around in various ways over the past ~130ish years), the most significant change being immigration under the DOJ in 1940 (for… Somewhat obvious security reasons for the time).
DHS just absorbed all the different groups under one shitty lead. The excuse at the time being terrorism.
There is zero reason customs shouldn’t be under the treasury, immigration under labor, and enforcement (as in managing the deportation of those convicted of violent acts, or pursuing smugglers identified by customs, so on) under justice.
The reformation under DHS was specifically designed to militarize.
Aggression aside I feel like ICE should be more on the legal side of things than the force side of things