I’ve been thinking…
I have to say, it doesn’t surprise me that prominent Democrats are saying they want to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Why? Good question.
ICE enforces federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration to promote homeland security and public safety. It was created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the former U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
With 20,000 employees in more than 400 offices in the United States and 46 foreign countries, its role is very important to the US. Its two primary directorates, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), provide important functions to the American public. So just why have Democrats put abolishing ICE at the forefront of their mid-tern election platform? There are several reasons. Here they are in short.
- First, ICE keeps us safe from people who hate us or seek to knowingly and willingly violate our laws and the far-left of the Democratic party could care less about law enforcement. One aspect of the Trump-hating, progressive resistance, ANTIFA-inspiring far left is—frankly—anarchy. They hate laws that work against their radical agenda, and organizations like ICE enforce our laws very well. In 2016-2017 fully 5296 gang member were deported. In late 2017, another 1082 were booted and more are occurring every day. ICE is effective.
- Second, the Democrats think that by calling for this absurd policy they will somehow rally their base to the polls in November. Truth is, it may well have the opposite effect. Blue collar Democrats who supported Trump in the biggest political upset in history, are NOT going to join in a call to destroy the very organization that—by deporting illegal aliens—helps legally present labor interests in the US. But that is no concern to prominent Democrats who—having lost labor to Trump—are now seeking a “new coalition” made up of people who support open borders and illegal immigration. Driving a stake in the heart of ICE is their way of doing that.
- More ominously, the want us to see ICE as a hate group. Democrats have taken to calling anyone who doesn’t agree with them “fascists”, “Nazis”, “white supremacist” or other hateful types that—in all seriousness—have utterly no place in American society. Ironically, in making such empty and untrue charges against those who don’t support their positions, Democrats are appropriating to themselves the very tactics of the hate groups we all should despise. Which is why I would not be surprised to see full-blown advertisements from leftwing groups before November that portray ICE as the “American Gestapo”, which would also be a despicable lie. (In fact Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) has already made that precise claim on January 27th of this year.)
No doubt Democrats will highlight a recent report that 19 ICE agents want the organization “abolished” when in fact what they want is for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) to be separate agencies. But those details won’t matter in a world where facts get in the way of rhetoric.
“So what?”, you may say. “Isn’t this just establishment Democrats in “survival mode” trying to appease the looney left?” Well, absolutely. But here’s my takeaway from all of this.
Democrats have embarked on the most politically self-destructing adventure I have witnessed in my adult life. The vast majority of American don’t want to see ICE disbanded. They are rational. They know what the Democrats are up to, pandering to the far left. But in doing so, they render themselves even more oblivious to the real concerns of everyday Americans.
So let’s hope they will continue to turn up the volume and drive more people toward the conservative camp. As Napoleon said, “When the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.”
