Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) became the first senator to call for the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to be abolished during an interview on CNN with Chris Cuomo Thursday night.

WATCH:

“I believe that it has become a deportation force,” Gillibrand stated. “And I think you should separate out the criminal justice from the immigration issues.”

“I think you should reimagine ICE under a new agency with a very different mission, and take those two missions out,” she continued. “So, we believe that we should protect families that need our help, and that is not what ICE is doing today.”

I believe we need to protect families who need help, and ICE isn’t doing that. It has become a deportation force. We need to separate immigration issues from criminal justice. We need to abolish ICE, start over and build something that actually works. https://t.co/JtSN68k4Fd — Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) June 29, 2018

Gillibrand’s comments on ICE were prompted by Cuomo bringing up fellow New York politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez defeated longtime incumbent Joe Crowley and will represent the Democrats in the 14th district of New York in November’s election. She campaigned on abolishing ICE and is a self-identified Democrat socialist. (RELATED: OCASIO-CORTEZ: ABOLISHING ICE IS ‘COMMON SENSE’)

Gillibrand added, “I agree with [Ocasio-Cortez]. I don’t think ICE today is working as intended.”