WASHINGTON – Hundreds of liberals gathered in Louisville, Kentucky to rally against President Donald Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border.

Then a rally speaker asked them all to leave.

Instead of standing at Metro Hall, activist Izzy Sanchez said, protesters should march to the office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for arresting people for deportation.

Hundreds went with him, chanting “shut down ICE.” But hundreds stayed put, including the Democratic mayor. Many of the latter group, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, “appeared confused by the sudden division.”

The literal split was representative of a broader split among Democrats over how to approach immigration in general and ICE in particular.

Party moderates, and many progressives, want to focus their criticism on Trump’s controversial policies. But they are being tested by a growing party faction, led by left-wingers, that is pushing its own controversial proposal to dissolve ICE entirely.

“We don’t want reformation. We want the full abolition of ICE,” said Jesus Ibanez, one of the organizers of the Louisville march and now the ongoing “Occupy ICE” encampment. “What we must do is dismantle the deportation machine.”

Read more:

Under Trump, ICE arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions have doubled

Facing broad backlash for separating children, Trump digs in — and lies

Trump signs order to stop separation of families but detain children indefinitely

Democrats are moving leftward on a host of issues under Trump, moving away from trying to court moderates and toward positions that excite their base. The immigration shift has been driven not only by anger at Trump but frustration with Democratic leaders whose pleas for moderation have neither produced successful legislation nor stopped Republicans from wrongly claiming they support “open borders.”

“We in the community of Democrats have been yelling for about 20 years for immigration reform, immigration reform. And what has that got us? Nowhere. We have crumbs,” said Ibanez, 33, a recent law school graduate. “The same people who are against abolition of ICE, what have they done? Absolutely nothing. It’s now time for new tactics.”

The calls for ICE abolition are still confined to a minority of party voters and an even smaller minority of elected officials. But they have suddenly grown big enough to alarm senior Democratic figures who worry they will alienate white moderates in the midterm elections.

Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security secretary under Barack Obama, has decried the proposal as unrealistic and a threat to national unity. Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters: “Look, ICE does some functions that are very much needed.”

“Reform ICE? Yes. That’s what I think we should do,” he said.

ICE was created in 2003 out of the dissolution of another government body. (The Border Patrol, not ICE, guards the border and apprehends people who have just entered the country illegally; ICE arrests people around the country.) Sean McElwee, an activist behind the abolition push, said abolishing ICE is “100 per cent doable,” even “trivial,” given how often the government reorganizes its bureaucracies.

ICE received frequent criticism from immigrants and activists under Obama. Under Trump, a bigger group of progressives has come to see it as an instrument of cruelty. As Trump has encouraged officers to be aggressive and “mean,” reports have mounted of ICE arresting unauthorized immigrants beloved by their communities, caring for children and dealing with disabilities.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Until the last two months, though, the refrain “Abolish ICE” was still obscure. To the extent it was known to the media, it was largely as a quixotic Twitter refrain from McElwee, 25, who argues the agency’s work “can only be described as ethnic cleansing.”

Then, fuelled by the fury over Trump’s family separation, it went national.

One day in late June, McElwee looked at his phone at a Starbucks and began laughing with such glee other patrons looked at him funny. He had just seen New York governor candidate Cynthia Nixon say she wanted to abolish ICE, which she called a “terrorist organization.”

That same week, Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan said he would introduce abolition legislation. Then left-wing Queens congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned on abolition, won a primary upset over a top party incumbent. Then a potential presidential candidate, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, became the first senator to endorse abolition.

“I think it’s just shown the power of a really clear, concrete demand and something people can really grasp,” McElwee said.

As McElwee has watched with delight, so have Republicans. Trump and others have attempted to draw attention to the abolition movement, using it as evidence for their claims about Democratic extremism and ammunition for their claims about the supposed threat of immigrant criminals.

“You get rid of ICE you’re going to have a country that you’re going to be afraid to walk out of your house,” Trump told Fox News. “I love that issue if they’re going to actually do that.”

Republican strategist Rick Tyler, a frequent Trump critic, said abolition is “ludicrous” as a practical matter and unwise as a political refrain.

“I think the Democrats have been dealt, on many issues, a winning hand. But if they’re going to squander that winning hand into overreaching and driving the issue back the other way, that’s just not politically smart,” he said.

There is no consensus on what exactly “Abolish ICE” means. Supportive politicians have been vague on what they want to happen next, suggesting they would kill some of ICE’s functions but hand others to a different body. McElwee is clearer: he wants to end mass deportation.

“I think the number of people who should be deported in a sane, functioning United States would be roughly one one-hundredth of what you have now,” he said. The routine banishment of longtime residents, he said, is “far more radical than calls to abolish a relatively small bureau under the Department of Homeland Security.”

Even if abolition doesn’t happen, McElwee said, they can shift the Democratic debate on immigration.

Read more about: