Despite prominent open-border politicians increasingly expressing support for the ridiculous idea of abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency, very few American voters actually agree with them.
According to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released last week, only 25 percent of voters think ICE should be abolished, compared to 54 percent who think the agency should remain. Even in a border state such as Arizona, only 17 percent support abolishing ICE.
Undeterred by these numbers, radically open-border politicians are not backing down.
“The president’s deeply immoral actions have made it obvious we need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and that works,” possible 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren declared at a Boston rally.
Warren is hardly alone in her radical call to abolish ICE. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley last month in a New York Democratic primary, ran on a platform that included the abolishment of the agency.
“So abolishing ICE doesn’t mean get rid of our immigration policy, but what it does mean is to get rid of the draconian enforcement that has happened since 2003 that routinely violates our civil rights, because, frankly, it was designed with that structure in mind,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Other politicians pushing this stance include New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon outright called ICE a “terrorist organization.”
Acting on their words, House Democrats introduced a bill last week that would scrap the agency. House Republican leadership originally planned to capitalize on the idea’s unpopularity by holding a vote on the bill, but ultimately decided against it. A vote would have forced Democratic lawmakers who represent voters who largely support ICE’s mission to take a stand on the issue. Instead, the House will vote on a resolution to support ICE.
“It’s the craziest position I’ve ever seen and they [the Democratic leadership]are just, they’re tripping over themselves to move too far to the left,” said Speaker Paul Ryan, according to Politico. “They are out of the mainstream of America.”
ICE arrested more than 100,000 criminal aliens in 2017. DUI and drug possession were the most common charges. The agency protects the United States by tracking down those who aren’t legally permitted to be here, including the removal of hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens. While open-border politicians may not understand the important role ICE plays in law enforcement, the American people still do.