Fact check: U.S. Senate candidate’s claims on ICE

Like President Donald Trump and other Republicans, U.S. Senate candidate Dominic Rapini is betting that Democrats’ calls to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency, better known as ICE, will motivate voters to cast their ballots for Republicans in the midterm elections.

Rapini, whose campaign posts avidly on social media, took to Facebook Saturday to criticize his opponent Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy for allegedly supporting the elimination of ICE.

In fact, Murphy does not favor abolishing ICE. He does want to see comprehensive changes to the U.S. immigration system, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants fleeing violence or who have lived peaceably in the U.S. for years.

“Our enforcement system needs to completely reset its priorities,” Murphy in a statement Tuesday. “No more children in cages. No more arresting asylum seekers who cross the border to seek refuge. No more targeting law-abiding undocumented families. Immigration enforcement resources should be focused on people who have criminal records.”

Rapini, a longtime Apple executive from Branford who has never held elected office, said he believed Murphy supported abolishing ICE because he did not speak out against other Democrats who favored shutting the agency down.

“It’s been the party line of all Democrats for open borders and for abolishing ICE,” Rapini said in an interview Tuesday. “He hasn’t come out against it.”

When presented with Murphy’s real stance, Rapini said, “That’s good. I wish he said that sooner.”

Since the Trump adminstration began separating children from their families, some Democrats have called for an ICE shut down, but it is far from the party line for most Democrats.

Democratic Lt. Governor candidate Eva Bermudez Zimmerman joined a protest outside local ICE offices in Hartford on Monday where many called for the end of ICE and the reunification of families separated at the border.

Bermudez Zimmerman said she joined the rally to show support for immigrants who come here and help support our economy, paying taxes, with many raising U.S. citizen children.

Progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won a surprise primary victory in New York’s 14th District in June, and whose upstart campaign has been compared to Bermudez Zimmerman’s, has called for shutting down ICE. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and U.S. Rep.s Nydia Velázquez of New York and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon are among the Democrats who have called for the elimination of the agency.

But other Democrats, like Murphy and Connecticut’s senior U.S senator, Richard Blumenthal, say eliminating ICE is not a good idea.

“Abolishing ICE will accomplish nothing unless we change the Trump policies,” Blumenthal said, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Trump predicted Sunday Democratic will lose elections if they support getting rid of ICE. He reiterated the message late Monday night on Twitter.

“Many Democrats are deeply concerned about the fact that their ‘leadership’ wants to denounce and abandon the great men and women of ICE, thereby declaring war on Law & Order,” he wrote. “These people will be voting for Republicans in November and, in many cases, joining the Republican Party!”

The voters Rapini has spoken with want Trump’s immigration laws enforced, not enforcement erased, Rapini said.

“That’s a losing position,” Rapini said.