The recent images of immigrant children ripped away from their families due to the Trump administration’s newest “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy, and the stories of trauma and horror at the border are absolutely appalling. For socialists, activists and radicals, one glimmer of hope has been watching the demand for the abolition of ICE become more and more mainstream. Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon have made the abolition of ICE a part of their platform. In San Francisco, at the march for immigrant families on June 30th protesters chanted, “ICE out! Immigrants in!” and “How do you spell racist? I-C-E!” Deep political discussions are needed if we are to abolish ICE, and I am happy that Domenic Powell started this conversation in Jacobin Magazine with his article, “How to Abolish ICE.” However the author leaves much to be desired.

Powell tends to focus on electoral solutions, such as electing sheriffs are who are sympathetic to our demands or pointing out to Democrats that immigrants are a voting bloc they should cater to. In terms of solutions, Powell also suggests that, “Local police should adjust their booking practices to avoid unnecessarily collecting national origin information, depriving ICE of information on potential targets.” This suggestion is wildly insufficient — it is of little use to outline what local police should do. Local police should stop killing unarmed Black people, and stop harassing homeless people on the street. We need to think through what it will take to force those in power to meet our demands. I hope to fill in gaps where needed, and expand upon what the implications are for the demand of abolishing ICE.

There is a huge risk regarding the rallying cry “Abolish ICE” and it’s a shame the author doesn’t go into it. Namely, it is entirely possible that politicians who may want to appear progressive will rally to end Immigration and Customs Enforcement specifically, only to fund and create a new federal program with the same duties. Powell writes, “Without ICE, children don’t suffer the trauma of their parents being taken away from them in the middle of the night.” But this is only true if we are able to end deportations for good and achieve amnesty for all of the millions of undocumented people.

We often hear that “ICE was only created in 2003” implying that it’s short existence will make it easier to abolish. What this framing leaves out is that before ICE was created, the US was still harassing, intimidating and deporting undocumented people. The Immigration and Naturalization Services was an arm of the Department of Justice until 2003 and was responsible for deporting undocumented people. After 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security was created and INS folded, with many of its “field activities” being transferred to a new department, called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. For decades, whether it was ICE or INS, undocumented people in the US have been keenly aware of the threat from “la migra.” Additionally, ICE’s short existence does not at all mean it will be easy to abolish. The ideology of the war on terror that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security is strong even a decade and a half after 9/11, and there is a lot of profit to be had in the detention of undocumented people. The fight to abolish ICE will note be easy, and we should grapple with what it will take to achieve our demands.

What It Will Take

Powell raises a variety of ways we can weaken the power of ICE in order to end it once and for all. I appreciate the author for getting into the weeds of just how ICE works. For example, he details the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to act like ICE agents. Spreading knowledge about which police departments participate in this program and which don’t can help us develop local targets for activism. In addition to any ways we may weaken ICE, Customs and Border and Protection and local police, we also need to advocate for amnesty and justice. But even if we know what we want to do, the question remains, how do we do it? We know that we can’t rely on Democrats to fight for us. As immigrant rights activists have pointed out for years, Obama deported more people than any other president in US history, earning him the nickname “Deporter in Chief.” Democrats in Congress have been unwilling to wage a true fight for all immigrants, and even Bernie Sanders hesitates to call for the abolition of ICE.

It will take a massive social movement to abolish ICE, and excitingly enough it seems like we are seeing the beginnings of that. On June 30th, hundreds of thousands of people came out in cities all across the country to protest the family separation policy of the Trump administration. People of a variety of political affiliations came together to demand justice. Politicians and celebrities spoke at these rallies, many of which were organized by the Women’s March and their affiliates.

More militant tactics have been used as well. On June 17th, a candle light vigil at an ICE detention facility in Portland, Oregon turned into an occupation. The Occupy ICE movement spread rapidly to cities like Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. While the direct action and anarchist tendencies of these occupations may seem counter posed to the more liberal rallies on June 30th, they have a fundamental truth in common — they understand our power lies ordinary people uniting in the streets. Again and again, the Occupy ICE encampment in San Francisco stated that if people wanted to support, they should show up in numbers. In one instance they wrote, “More than supplies, we need numbers.” Occupy ICE in Portland told supporters, “Bring candles, signs, noisemakers and tents. Most importantly, bring yourself. Even if you can only come down for a day, for an hour, your presence is important and needed. It takes ALL of us working together to stop this machine of terror.”

As of July 9th, the Occupy ICE encampment in San Francisco has ended after being raided by the police. While this is disappointing, it is not surprising; the fight to abolish ICE and achieve justice for immigrants won’t be easy. To abolish ICE, we are coming up against the Department of Homeland Security and an administration packed with white supremacists with no regard for the horror they are inflicting on these immigrants and their families. We need masses of people, and we need to sustained organization, despite any defeats we may face.

The demand to abolish ICE is one that we support whole-heartedly as socialists; and we want so much more than that. We cannot let the demand to abolish ICE be watered down and met in only the most technical terms. We have an opening in this political moment, and we need to take advantage of it. At every opportunity, every rally, in every piece of writing, we must be clear that our demand to abolish ICE means an end to deportations and a call for open borders. “Abolish ICE” is a rallying cry that can open up conversations about demilitarizing the border, about the inherent violence of the existence of borders, and about the possibility for a world with no deportations at all.