A foolish crusade to end ICE
It’s an understandable but ruinous war cry: “Abolish ICE.” A string of name-brand Democrats are lining up on the left to go after the Trump-directed border police. But going after the front-line troops in the battle for immigration fairness comes with no serious alternative and hands the White House a political gift.
Zapping a misdirected agency out of existence does nothing about the underlying issues. Even worse, there’s near silence on what comes next if the 20,000person entity stops work. While these questions dangle, the Trump team is free to shift the debate from its cruel “zero tolerance” policy and forced separations of families to wide-armed accusations that Democrats don’t care about border security.
Allowing the president to change the channel is a huge mistake. He should be made to answer for dividing families and putting young children in wire cages. He’s submerging that debate in demagoguery and racism with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents his ready-made tools.
The agency has an essential job to enforce border laws. Created in the the post-Sept. 11 makeover of national security, ICE has a string of law-enforcement duties that range from human trafficking, drug seizures and border stops. Those duties will always remain important.
What’s changed is the inhumane emphasis that Trump has put on imprisoning all illegal bordercrossers. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama fine-tuned the work to go after criminals and others while they worked unsuccessfully to craft congressional changes in immigrations laws. Trump has shredded this approach with a fullblown crackdown on the border, playing up meritless concerns about gang crimes. Disbanding ICE doesn’t get at this harsh policy.
The political names are lining up, starting with early season Democratic presidential contenders who are playing to a rising activist and progressive base. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts favor doing away with ICE. Sen. Kamala Harris of California is more tentative, calling for a first step of reexamining the agency with an eye to major changes.
But as the Occupy-style tents go up outside federal offices, the White House is delighted. A White House official told the Washington Post the anti-ICE boomlet is a “political suicide march.” It’s not hard to see why: The crusade shifts the debate from the misery and humiliations created by Trump to a hazy vision that’s easily ridiculed. It means the president’s plummeting polling numbers can be overlooked by focusing on a half-baked cause.
ICE isn’t the problem. Trump is. Dumping a needed agency won’t curb a runaway White House and its abusive policies.