{"id":5753,"date":"2026-07-29T10:37:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5753"},"modified":"2026-07-29T10:37:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:37:29","slug":"drucker-the-us-could-abolish-ice-then-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5753","title":{"rendered":"Drucker: The US could \u2018abolish ICE.\u2019 Then what?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>It would be political folly for the Democratic Party to fully embrace calls to \u201cabolish ICE,\u201d at least without adopting a substitute blueprint for strong immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5751\">Opinion: The housing crisis you\u2019re not hearing about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not to say Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasn\u2019t abused its power during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. American citizens have been harassed, detained, even killed. Immigrants with legal status or those that lived in the U.S. for years have suffered similarly, as happened yet again this month with the killings of Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas. Even the conditions and safety of detention have come under scrutiny after several in-custody deaths.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, many voters have soured on ICE. Half of U.S. adults said they were at least \u201csomewhat\u201d supportive of \u201cabolishing ICE,\u201d including 77% of Democrats and 52% of independents, according to a YouGov survey published in March.<\/p>\n<p>That explains why several Democratic congressional candidates are campaigning to \u201cabolish ICE,\u201d in upcoming midterm elections. Among them is Michigan Senate contender Abdul El-Sayed, who like many progressive Democrats pushing to dismantle ICE, has not offered an alternative agency or strategy for handling immigration enforcement. Ditto Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who is running for reelection and is a rumored 2028 contender. That\u2019s a mistake.<\/p>\n<h4>Political risk<\/h4>\n<p>Abolishing ICE is a simplistic message that makes Democratic candidates easy pickings for Republicans. Voters\u2019 opposition to bad immigration enforcement doesn\u2019t mean they want lax enforcement. Failing to provide a detailed proposal for ICE\u2019s legitimate functions after the agency were to shut down only compounds that political miscalculation. It stokes lingering voter suspicions that Democrats don\u2019t have a problem with ICE but with the enforcement of U.S. immigration law more broadly.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not just my analysis. Some veteran Democratic insiders worry the party is exceedingly vulnerable on this front: Republican campaigns are sure to air advertising this fall that accuse Democrats of opposing the deportation of immigrants in the U.S. illegally who have committed violent crimes. That\u2019s a policy that remains popular, even as voters\u2019 opinions of ICE, and Trump\u2019s handling of immigration, have slumped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really important for candidates in places like Florida, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, Alaska to have a posture on crime that neutralizes the attacks that will come in the fall,\u201d veteran Democratic operative Neera Tanden told the New York Times\u2019 Thomas B. Edsall. She\u2019s not wrong. The Democrats\u2019 path to the Senate majority, if one exists, runs mostly through red states with voting majorities that prioritize border security.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5749\">Harriette Cole: Would it be foolish to open a big-city lounge in my sleepy new town?<\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Alternative blueprint<\/h4>\n<p>Proponents of abolishing ICE usually argue that they\u2019re not opposed to immigration enforcement, that criminals in the U.S. illegally don\u2019t deserve to stay, that ICE is irreparably damaged and reforming the agency is impossible and that the abuses can only be stopped by starting from scratch with a new approach. They often emphasize that ICE is only 23 years old, a product of the government reorganization spearheaded by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9\/11 terrorist attacks. Immigration reform occurred pre-ICE and can continue post-ICE.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cICE, as we know it, is an infant government agency. And I have no problem whatsoever, personally, abolishing it,\u201d Ethan Faur\u00e9, a senior research analyst at the progressive Political Research Associates told me. \u201cThe reality is that when you talk about changing ICE in some way to only find the bad people [immigrants] \u2014 however that\u2019s conceived \u2014 the reality is that\u2026 the police departments and sheriffs throughout the country are ostensibly doing that already, so ICE itself is a redundant agency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not questioning the sincerity of Democrats who are troubled by ICE and want the agency abolished. Nor am I suggesting politicians aren\u2019t justified in being aghast at the agency\u2019s misconduct. What I am questioning is the feasibility of their position. Simply put, calls to \u201cabolish ICE\u201d versus \u201creform ICE\u201d aren\u2019t politically viable\u2014 especially if presented without a comprehensive alternative. And Democrats should know better.<\/p>\n<p>President Joe Biden\u2019s response to Trump\u2019s first-term immigration tactics, which never rose to the level of his second administration, was initially to reduce enforcement \u2014 at the border and within the country. The perception of chaos, crime and unfairness sent voters scurrying back to the current president. (Yes, inflation and the economy played a major role in Trump\u2019s reelection but so did immigration policy.) It\u2019s why Biden attempted to reverse course late in his presidency and cracked down on illegal border crossings and the gaming of the asylum system. It\u2019s why then-Vice President Kamala Harris tried to recast herself as an immigration hawk when she ran for president.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, voters\u2019 dissatisfaction with Trump, the Iran war and persistent inflation may reward Democrats with control of Congress regardless of how many of them hop on the \u201cabolish ICE\u201d bandwagon. But if the party wants to be in the strongest position to win the White House in 2028, it needs to reconsider, or at least develop a plan, for what happens next.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>David M. Drucker is a columnist covering politics and policy.\u00a0\u00a92026 Bloomberg. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5748\">Miss Manners: She freaked out about a bee, and my al fresco party was done<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scrapping the agency without a clear enforcement replacement is a political miscalculation for Democrats<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Drucker: The US could \u2018abolish ICE.\u2019 Then what? - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5753\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drucker: The US could \u2018abolish ICE.\u2019 Then what? 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