No need to abolish it. Just need to use it appropriately and not as a political tool of incompetent vindictive Dotardian vengeance.
It appears that kamala H. and k. Gillibrand are on board so this may be a relatively big issue in our next presidential election cycle.
We have the letter from nearly 20 ICE regional supervisors calling for splitting up ICE into two agencies so they can more effectively focus on national security. The thread below go through a brief history of ICE and the problem it has from the very start. THREAD: Amid all of the calls to #abolishICE, I found myself asking, where did it come from? Why did we do it? Maybe we made a mistake. I was there and remember it thematically, but I wanted to remind myself. Maybe it will help others. 1/ First source, this amazing article on how DHS came to be. 5 people debating the largest overhaul of the US government since the creation of DoD...and presenting it to the Cabinet as a fait accompli. 2/ At the center of the need to fix things was the border: how did 26 people come to our country and blow up buildings. Answer: a border where 7 different Cabinet agencies touched a traveler on any given day. It had to be fixed. 3/ One gem I'd forgotten: Condi Rice arguing that putting all enforcement under one agency would "make the department look like the German Interior Ministry." So the FBI and the DEA escaped the merger through the swipe of a marker on a white board...literally. 4/ the point is that the merger was about fixing the terrorism problem. it put beat cop type inspectors in the same office as the cuff-link wearing investigators of trafficking, money laundering and drug running in the same room, and forcing them to work together to get bad guys. 5/ Fast forward: 2003 and the creation of @ICEgov. They were going to "connect the dots" and we talked a lot about "layers" and "swiss cheese." They worked to brand. CBP had "One Face at the Border" and cool new uniforms. ICE had a cool name, and, yes, keychains like this. 6/ But they weren't happy. People didn't get paid. They didn't sit together. They weren't paid the same amount. The guys who got respect for investigating a drug cartel were on the same footing as people who hunted down a deadbeat who'd been accidentally freed and not deported. 7/ Another eye opening piece from the time: govexec.com/defense/2003/1… 8/ Cops b****ing about cops=not new. But here's the thing: all of this was with purpose. It was created on the basis that the borders needed to be secured to protect us from BAD GUYS WHO FLEW PLANES INTO BUILDINGS. 9/ The passionate agents who wanted to pursue money laundering, p*rnography, drugs...they did. And they caught lots of bad guys, but it wasn't "The big T" (terrorism) as it was known. 10/ So what happened. How did @ICEgov turn into the Gestapo that many communities in the United States now view them to be? And are they really still fulfilling the organizational intent for which they were formed? 11/ One reason is the ability to make use of one of the oldest laws on the books--literally--of the US government: customs enforcement. It had pretty wide reaching authority. As described to me: "How do you think we caught foreign fur trappers in the 18th Century?" 12/ In the early 20th century it was prohibition. Customs agents could do more than just take your booze. They could follow you, infiltrate your operation, and do all of it without the knowledge of the local sheriff. 13/ So that law is still on the books. Only now they're hunting people, and the detention and removal part of INS that joined them, well...those two teams finally went out for it seems. 14/ And now, they've got the green light for this to be the priority over investigations of gangs, drugs, money laundering and other horrible things. Funny thing is, these are exactly the things the Trump Administration claims are the problem. 15/ So instead of empowering investigators who follow the money, develop the sources, create diplomatic solutions to train and work with Treasury and Commerce to do fun stuff like targeted freezing of assets, they just arrest people for working in restaurants.16/ So I have missed a lot here, but i think national security experts miss the point that the progressive call to #abolishICE is not just a knee-jerk anger at cops. It is also a recognition that they aren't doing what we built them to do. 17/ Instead, they are using a legislative authority to accomplish a political goal, not tied in any empirical way to making the country safer. Moreover, as law enforcement, they have lost the trust of the public. That is an even threat to our system. 18/ We took government apart and put it back together before, and it was an effort strongly supported by Rs and Ds (certainly with a fog of terrorism thrown in). Point being, we can do it again. 19/ I am cool with #AbolishICE. They've gone too far from what they were intended to do. in its place I need a center for investigating the cross-border white supremacist movement and ties to organized crime, illicit drug trade and gangs and other things they're ignoring. 20/ And I'm not talking about creating a new agency to do new perp walks. I'm talking about a hybrid of law enforcement and support for good policy making. People who can help us rethink the way we do things to actually make us safer. 21/ I hope Serious People will stop dismissing #abolishICE as a leftist perspective and explore the policy merits based on security gaps. We can get safer, and start agreeing more all at the same time. Thanks for listening. 22/22 END
ICE was part of the knee-jerk response to 9/11 so it's not surprising the organization is a a combination of wasteful, brutish nonsense.
I do think ICE can improve. The communication between the various agencies and ICE needs to improve. There is no reason undocumented felons should avoid ICE holds and make bond.
I was told this was a false flag perpetrated by wingnuts and didn't represent the mainstream. The movement to 'Abolish ICE' is heating up -- and going mainstream
If all else fails, go with semantics? Operation Matador, New York City: has led to the arrest of 475 gang members.
This is definitely sig-worthy for all arguments going further. Trump supporters and apologist are quick to search for meaning in his crazy messages, but find it very difficult doing the same when it comes to the other side.
So... NYC was being held by MS-13? And of the 475 arrests, only 24 were "transnational gang members including MS-13"? How many people live in NYC? How many other gang members? In fact, while we are at it... how many MS-13 gang members in the US? And of that number... how many are already US citizens, and not an ICE issue? Going after gangs and fighting crime is all good... but trump's "liberating" tweet is not just a matter of semantics... its an outright lie.
"I have watched ICE liberate towns from the grasp of MS-13" He is clearly talking about when he visited Long Island during Operation Matador. Trump Will Visit Long Island in the Wake of MS-13 Gang Arrests
274 MS-13 arrests. 15 18th street arrests. A total of 475 individuals were arrested during this ongoing enforcement effort, most of which were confirmed as gang members and affiliates. The most prominent gangs with arrests during this operation were MS-13 with 274 arrests and the 18th street gang with 15 arrests. This operation yielded 227 total criminal arrests and 248 administrative arrests. The 24 you are ignorantly quoting is in a single day genius. Try reading a little more completely.
It was in the title of the very article you linked, so argue with yourself. And unless NYC was being held by 274 people, trump was still lying.
All you read is the title then ignorantly concluded only 24 of the 475 were gang members due to a lack of reading comprehension and laziness. I've spoonfed you the real numbers, you are off by over an order of magnitude.
Again, over the course of 10 months 274 MS-13 members (not 475 as you state above) were arrested in a population of over 8.5 million? And you still want to agree with trump's lie that the "town" of NYC was being held by MS-13?
