Atlanta
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has “become a deportation force.”
“You should get rid of it, start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works,” she told CNN late Thursday.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination in 2016 and is mulling another run, has stopped short of his colleagues’ calls to dismantle ICE. But he also has been quick to note his vote opposing the 2002 law that paved the way for ICE to replace the old Immigration and Naturalization Service following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Housed within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE is in charge of executing hundreds of federal immigration statutes. The debate over the agency’s future follows the widespread outcry in recent weeks after the Trump administration separated more than 2,000 migrant children from their parents. Marches were scheduled across the country Saturday to protest the policy, which President Donald Trump later reversed.
The Democratic calls to scrap the agency underscore the balancing act the party is facing on immigration issues. Such rhetoric could prove unhelpful to the 10 Democratic senators seeking re-election this fall in states Trump carried in 2016, where conservative views on immigration prevail. But calling for an end to ICE could be a winner for Democrats seeking to rally the party’s base in the 2020 presidential primaries.
Still, not every immigrant advocacy group takes the same view.
Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Project, a political action group that backs pro-immigration candidates, rejected ICE as a “litmus test.” But he said it’s “heartening” that immigration policy in general “is at the forefront of the conversation ahead of 2020.”