It's Time to Rethink the Politics of "Abolish ICE"

"At that point, policy demanders outside Democratic Party officialdom treated ICE abolition as part of the price of entry for primary candidates. The progressive pollster Sean McElwee became a minor celebrity for popularizing the phrase. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who mounted a short-lived campaign for president, said that Democrats should "get rid of ICE" if they were able to retake Congress in the 2018 midterms."

"Chanting "Abolish ICE" proved to be a potent, replicable means of catharsis, but accomplished little else. It's at least plausible that without the "abolish ICE" craze, leading progressives wouldn't have been primed to embrace the activist call to "defund the police" in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd. Years later, police budgets remain intact, and ICE is the largest, most lavishly funded law-enforcement organization in the world."

"McElwee left the progressive movement and joined forces with moderate Democrats, before becoming embroiled in ethical scandals. And the legacy of the whole episode is a lot of bad blood within the party. From a wide-angled perspective, these hard feelings are somewhat mystifying: Whatever substantive or political misgivings Democrats had about Abolish ICE, they went on to win the 2018 midterms in a landslide."

Calls to abolish ICE gained momentum midway through Donald Trump's first term as longstanding criticism of the agency expanded amid the "zero tolerance" policy that separated children from parents at the southern border. Progressive activists made ICE abolition a primary demand, with Sean McElwee popularizing the slogan and some Democrats endorsing getting rid of the agency. The chant functioned largely as catharsis rather than producing substantive reform. The movement likely influenced later openness to "defund the police," yet police budgets largely remained intact while ICE grew into the largest, most lavishly funded law-enforcement organization, leaving significant intra-party rancor.

Read at Slate Magazine