Immigration has been at the forefront of the political world in a way we have not seen in a number of years. President Trump has pursued everything from the border wall and a refugee ban to trying to ban those under DACA or Temporary Protected Status. The political climate on immigration has become so escalated that the Democrats introduced legislation to "Abolish ICE." What is ICE? The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is responsible for enforcing the laws concerning trade, border control, and immigration to promote homeland security. "Abolish ICE" started to take off when the family separation issue became headline news. We can bypass the fact that it is Custom and Borders Protection (CBP) that has been responsible for family separation. What we see is an increasingly polarized environment, both generally and specifically with regards to immigration.
What is intriguing about the "Abolish ICE" scenario is that the Republicans wanted to pass the bill introduced by the Democrats. Considering the upcoming midterm elections, the intrigue is that the Republicans are calling the bluff on the Democrats trying to make immigration an election issue. After all, a Politico poll found that 54 percent of Americans are against abolishing ICE, with an additional 21 percent unsure. Even more interesting is the fact the Democrats are not going to vote for their own bill. It was political grandstanding. Since the Democrats are abandoning the bill, I would conjecture that the "Abolish ICE" debacle is not going to have a sizable impact on the election in either direction.
Nevertheless, I can understand why the Left has the sentiment of "Abolish ICE." Trump has a highly restrictionist immigration policy that is reminiscent of the 1920s. The effects of reducing immigration, regardless of legal or not, are net negative. Plus, the creation of ICE created another issue: creating a department that views immigration primarily as a national security threat shifts the mentality from immigrants being friends to that of foes. This mentality is contrary to the reality of immigrants. Immigrants are such a non-threat to native citizens that a native citizen is 4,000 times more likely to be stuck by lighting than killed by an immigrant. Immigrants are not even a fiscal drain vis-à-vis welfare usage. Immigrants are not a threat to national security or the economy. Far from it! They actually provide net benefit to the native country. Both low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants help boost the GDP and provide a net increase in jobs.
Until the mentality on immigration and immigrants changes in the federal government, not much is going to change. Even if ICE were abolished, what would happen? The responsibilities would be transferred to another agency, and abolishing ICE would merely be an expensive, empty symbol. I'm a fan of the Cato Institute's two-pronged plan, which assumes that the policy goal is to remove hardened criminal immigrants while removing the fear from the otherwise law-abiding immigrants. Step one is to abolish immigration crimes. The second step is to transfer some of the Homeland Security Investigations' (HSI) responsibilities to the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and abolish the latter organization. I doubt that these specific reforms would be made under the current Congress. The reason why I still care is because the tenor of the conversation on immigration is too politicized. Abolishing ICE is unpopular, but supporting immigration is at an all-time high (Gallup). I know that we live in a politically charged and partisan time, but if the parties could actually reach across the aisle, there could be some real immigration reform that takes into account border security and making sure that the American Dream is accessible to immigrants.
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