‘The slogan is simple. But politically, it is lethal.’
Sensible Democrats who care about winning elections are begging their elected leaders to ignore the screeching activists who are (once again) hounding them to abolish ICE, the immigration enforcement agency.
It’s not going very well.
Two left-leaning advocacy groups published memos this week urging Democrats not to get swept up in the frenzy of anti-ICE rhetoric unleashed after an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. The Searchlight Institute, a think tank founded by former Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) adviser Adam Jentleson, thought it was necessary to remind Democrats that “advocating for abolishing ICE is tantamount to advocating for stopping enforcement of all of our immigration laws,” a policy that is “wrong on the merits and at odds with the American public.”
Third Way, another moderate think tank, warned Democrats that caving to the “abolish ICE” mob would be politically “lethal” and squander “one of the clearest opportunities in years” for meaningful reform. That is precisely what happened in 2020, the group argued, when enough Democrats embraced (or refused to condemn) the activist-led campaign to “defund the police” following George Floyd’s death. “We shouldn’t be the party against enforcement entirely,” Third Way wrote on X.
The message has fallen on deaf ears. Left-wing activists demanded ICE be dismantled in the wake of Good’s death, and prominent Democrats were quick to echo the call. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D., Ill.) responded directly to the Third Way memo urging Democrats to drop the phrase. “Fine!” she wrote. “Abolish ICE AND DHS.” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) argued this week that ICE could not be reformed and urged Congress to withhold funding for the agency.
Democratic candidates running in contested primaries were eager to express their solidarity. Graham Platner, the Nazi-adjacent candidate running for U.S. Senate in Maine, has repeatedly argued that ICE should not exist and called for its agents to be prosecuted. “People need to go to prison,” he said in November. Abdul El-Sayed, the Hamas-adjacent candidate running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, wrote last week that ICE was not a “law enforcement” agency. “So like I said in 2018: Abolish ICE.”
The phrase has been percolating in Democratic circles for nearly a decade. Sean McElwee, the disgraced left-wing activist, popularized the “Abolish ICE” mantra back in 2017 during Donald Trump’s first term. Within a year, mainstream politicians such as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) were arguing that if Democrats won control of Congress in the midterm election, one of their first priorities should be to “get rid of ICE.” In 2019, nearly all of the Democrats running for office vowed to downgrade illegal immigration from a criminal offense to a civil offense.
Some Democrats looked back on the past few years and cited the “Abolish ICE” craze—and the general reluctance to enforce immigration laws under President Joe Biden—as evidence that the party had lost touch with normal Americans. Alas, Trump’s highly visible efforts to deport illegal immigrants have emboldened the same left-wing activists who were briefly shunned after Kamala Harris’s defeat in 2024.
NBC News reports that calls to abolish ICE were already making a comeback before Good’s death in Minnesota fanned the flames. “Let me be clear: f— ICE,” Patty Garcia, a Democrat running for Congress in Illinois, said in November. “It’s time to abolish ICE and hold Trump and his entire clan accountable.” That same month, 25-year-old influencer Cameron Kasky launched his (now-defunct) campaign for Congress in New York by promising to “dismantle” Trump’s “fascist secret police.”
A Civiqs poll taken after the fatal shooting in Minneapolis found that 70 percent of Democrats favored abolishing ICE, compared to just 41 percent of independents. That’s a significant jump compared to June 2025, when a YouGov poll found that just 47 percent of Democrats, and 25 percent of independents, supported abolition. But that doesn’t mean going all-in on dismantling ICE is a political winner.
Politico reports that Democrats in Congress could soon face a reckoning with their activist base amid negotiations to fund the government and avoid another shutdown before the Jan. 30 deadline. In the House, many Democrats are still hesitant to support abolishing ICE, but the Congressional Progressive Caucus announced this week that its members would oppose new funding for DHS “unless there are meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices.” In the Senate, Democrats have thus far signaled an unwillingness to fight that is bound to enrage Bill Kristol and other left-wing activists demanding radical change.
Good luck to all!
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