How "Abolish ICE" Went to Main Stream Media

Before many people in the streets advocate and demand the abolition group “ICE,” whose sole purpose is to push immigrants out of the United States. Democrats were deliberating and debating on stage about the issue of Immigration and the movement to abolish ICE, also known as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two of the candidates proclaimed and advocated for dismantling the organization as a whole on their platform. Those who did not embrace this idea wanted more progressive reform. The movement pushed many ideas about abolition into the mainstream, changing criminal justice reform.

Activists for police abolition see the two movements as intertwined and say it isn’t a coincidence that both have risen to prominence in recent years.

Activists in the communities involved in the public had an idea to defund the police or abolish ICE. Cesar C Garcia Hernandez, a law professor in Denver, said, “These are activists who often are people of color in communities where law enforcement agents of various types hurt them and their people. For lots of people who have been doing this work for many years, they view the police and ICE as working hand in hand.” This means that people of color see that ICE and police are in a way working with each other to push or punish minority groups.

Movements to abolish ICE and the police have amassed significant support. By August 2018, about a quarter of Democrats supported calls to dismantle the agency. More than half had come to view the agency negatively. Similarly, polls conducted in the wake of recent protests have shown an almost 15 percent increase in support for cuts to law enforcement funding. It would be wrong to say that the movements’ messaging has had no impact. The idea of abolishing ICE has become worthy of consideration by a substantial embodiment of the community. Many of the organizations and movements calling for the abolition of ICE are the same ones that have been fighting to abolish the police force. They see both actions as a part of their objective to dismantle repressive law enforcement that has suppressed them in the justice system. ICE has more than 20,000 agents nationwide, operates as a police force it targets, and criminalizes non-white communities. There has been an enormous shift from the past to what it is now.

Many people don’t differentiate between abolishing the police and abolishing ICE, ICE, along with sheriffs, highway patrol, campus police, school safety guards, corrections officers, and military officers, as among the forms of law enforcement are toxic.