Jay Webber is falsely accusing his Democratic opponent for Congress, Mikie Sherrill, of saying she wants to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.



His team tried to spread the same bogus story about Sen. Robert Menendez. Neither has said they want to abolish ICE. They simply want to reform our immigration policies. Big difference.



So take note: This is Webber's first real moment of stepping out in this race, to fill the 11th district seat of retiring Rodney Frelinghuysen, and he's flat-out lying.

This pro-Trump Republican gets big boost in fight to replace Frelinghuysen



It's impossible to say what voice Webber is hearing inside his head, but it is no doubt that of someone, anyone, he'd rather be running against than Sherrill, a Navy pilot and former federal prosecutor who has worked closely with Homeland Security.



"I do not support the abolishment of ICE," she said, more than a week ago. Could she have been any clearer?



Yet still, Webber is refusing to back down. Now he claims that because a speaker at a June rally against family separations - a student who took the podium after Sherrill had left - supported abolishing ICE, his opponent must have, too, and is flip-flopping.



Please. This is incredibly flimsy logic, which Webber's team also used to wrongly claim that Menendez supports abolishing ICE. It's evidence enough that the senator spoke at a rally where this slogan was chanted, Webber's spokesman said on Thursday - before learning that Menendez told a reporter on Monday that he does not want to abolish ICE, but reform it.



So do we. "Abolish ICE" is a slogan that even many of its own proponents don't literally support. It's a fringe position that makes no practical sense. The point is to enforce the law with some humanity, by changing immigration policy.



We should return to a rigorous focus on deporting serious criminals, not fathers dropping their kids off at school, or church volunteers who helped rebuild homes after Hurricane Sandy. We should crack down on employers who hire unauthorized immigrants, to discourage people from coming here illegally - not wrest toddlers from their parents as a deterrence strategy.



It's not ICE that should be abolished, along with its worthy prosecutions of gang members, sex traffickers and the like. It's this administration's worst policies, including an indiscriminate approach to deportations. We need to provide a path to citizenship for longtime residents, secure our borders, make ICE more efficient and sharpen its mission.



"I think enforcement should be humane, and I think serious criminals should be deported," Sherrill said. The trick, of course, is to strike the right balance. This is why she spoke out against family separations at the border.



"As a mother, I can imagine too well the trauma that it is causing. Not just to the parents and children, but to our border control agents," Sherrill tweeted, the same day that Laura Bush published her searing op-ed, saying this "breaks my heart."



"These ad hoc policies of administrations have not been good for the system," Sherrill reiterated to us. "It's not good for law enforcement officers, it's resulting in bad policy and a lot of uncertainty."



Webber didn't speak up until the Trump administration had already caved under intense public pressure, and announced that it would stop separating kids from their parents. Too little, too late.



Rather than trying to smear his opponent as an enemy of law enforcement, maybe he should rethink his partisan gamesmanship, and ask himself: Can't America do better?

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