Pence vs. N.Y.
Veep rips city, state pols’ calls to get rid of ICE
Vice President Pence targeted New York lawmakers Friday as he blasted the growing backlash against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pence's full-throated defense of the embattled federal agency comes as protesters, Democratic politicians and candidates and a host of left-leaning groups have demanded an end to the offshoot of the Department of Homeland Security amid criticisms of the Trump administration's immigration policies.
“The American people have every right to engage in peaceful protest, but these threats against ICE officers and their families must stop, and they must stop now,” Pence said as he addressed agents at ICE headquarters in D.C. “These spurious attacks on ICE by our political leaders must stop.”
The VP went on to namedrop Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Mayor de Blasio as he cited examples of Democrats who have called for the disbanding of the agency.
"The truth is opposition of ICE has moved to the center of the Democratic party itself,” he said. “Just when you thought the Democrats couldn't move farther to the left, leading members of the Democratic party, including candidates for higher office, are actually openly advocating the abolition of ICE.”
Pence also made mention of gubernatorial candidate and former “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon.
“A leading candidate for governor of New York actually even appallingly called this agency a terrorist organization,” he said, without mentioning Nixon by name.
The upstart candidate fired back at Pence with a fiery statement.
“If Mike Pence is attacking me, we must be doing something right,” Nixon said. “ICE's mere existence causes many New Yorkers to live in daily fear that they will lose their family. I can think of no better description than to call ICE a terrorist organization, and I will wear any criticism from Mike Pence as a badge of honor.”
Gillibrand took to Twitter to counter Pence's claims.
“No, @VP, the separation of families at the border and throughout the country is cruel, and it must end. We'll keep speaking out as loud as we can until these families are reunited,” she wrote.
Pence, meanwhile, sought to assure the roughly 200 employees in the briefing room that their jobs were safe — as long as President Trump occupies the White House.
"The President sent me here today with a very important message: Under President Donald Trump, we will never abolish ICE," he said.
“Abolish ICE,” a social media-savvy slogan that protesters have chanted in the wake of Trump's disastrous approach to immigration, has been adopted in recent weeks by a number of leftleaning politicians, including congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Gillibrand last week called for a reimagining of the agency.
"I believe that it has become a deportation force. And I think you should separate out the criminal justice from the immigration issues,” she said. “And I think you should reimagine ICE under a new agency with a very different mission and take those two missions out.”