A sketch to abolish ICE
With the recent raids and countless other abuses in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, not to mention the assault of California Senator Alex Padilla, ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has proven to be an agency that is beyond redemption.
I have come around to ICE needing to be destroyed as an organization. It has shown itself eager to carry out MAGA’s dirty work, often while acting in the most brutal of ways and doing nothing to promote public safety or fight organized crime of any type.
That being said, I don’t want the far left to be involved in this. The far left will make an already difficult task even harder.
Out of all the federal law enforcement agencies on the books, ICE has the worst record when it comes to respecting human rights and fighting transnational organized crime.
In this context, transnational organized crime refers to crime syndicates whose “business” crosses national borders. The Mexican drug cartels are a classic example and, because of how much rhetoric is dedicated to fighting these organizations (despite the Trump administration’s actual record with them), the most relevant.
But to abolish ICE as a government agency will take an act of Congress on the legal and political front. To persuade people that ICE should be eliminated, it will not be enough to emphasize its human rights record, although that will be an essential strategy to mobilize the base.
America as a whole must be persuaded that ICE is incompetent and useless at executing real law enforcement work.
Three Broad Strategies
Broadly speaking, three pathways may persuade people that ICE should be abolished: 1. its human rights record and record of corruption, 2. the fact that it is inept when it comes to fighting crime of any type, and 3. the resentment many law enforcement professionals have of ICE.Most people who already want ICE gone want this on the basis of what it has done and how its members treat people.
But it must also be stressed that when it comes to national security and fighting transnational organized crime, ICE is hopeless and laughably inadequate.
Find footage or stories of ICE making an utter mess of things for other cops or members of law enforcement. Ideally, look for examples of incompetence that involve child exploitation.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, all go after actual bad guys.
The DEA works to interrupt the drug trade of substances that do real damage to people and goes after the cash flow of drug cartels. The ATF works at making sure the wrong people don’t have guns or explosives and investigates arson. The FBI does vital work at combating organized crime of all types, including human trafficking. The FBI also does a lot of work at catching criminals who cross state lines, including serial killers.
Yes, these agencies have serious problems of their own (including problematic histories), but their missions have a fundamental soundness to them. They also catch real bad guys on a reliable basis.
The menaces that ICE focuses on?
Contractors on construction sites. Parents picking up their kids from school. Day laborers in the parking lot of Home Depot who don’t have the right paperwork.
Even if they have not hurt anyone else.
For many people, it must be highlighted that when it comes to fighting transnational organized crime of any kind, ICE is at best ineffective. Make the case that ICE makes it easy for coyotes and other types of gangsters to operate by ICE giving people reason to stay silent when immigrants, documented or otherwise, are the witnesses or especially victims of a crime.
When it comes to the Southern Border, I am most concerned about drugs coming into the United States and weapons going into Mexico.
Another important tactic is to find instances of ICE’s ineptitude that can be played for comedy. Your average ICE agents probably love to think of themselves as Trump’s Gestapo or as scary people. They would probably hate it if they were thought of as DEI hires for those unable to do real police work.
I don’t know if this is true or not, but I have heard over and over again that ICE has a bad reputation even among other law enforcement agencies, especially local police departments. If this is true, it would be wise to reach out to other law enforcement professionals and agencies who resent what ICE is doing to their ability to work successfully. You don’t have to love cops or other federal agents, but one of the most valuable weapons against ICE is another law enforcement official who can make the case that ICE is making an already difficult job that much harder.
Frame it as ICE taking money away from important objectives like preventing drugs from entering the country, barring guns from getting into Mexico, or hindering the modern-day slave trade.
Remember who your audience members are. If they are the law-and-order type, underscore how pathetic ICE is at actually fighting crime, especially transnational organized crime. Though if they are itching for ICE’s brutality against Black and Brown people for its own sake, it will be a lost cause.
The best allies will be other law enforcement officials who dislike ICE, particularly if they look like the kind of cop who kicks down doors on TV or uses excessive force against pedophiles.
It will take a lot to abolish ICE as an organization.
An act of Congress and the signature of a president, to be exact.
But this agency has shown it is beyond redemption.
It must be eradicated.