Memo to Moderate Democrats: “Abolish ICE” Is Not a Fringe Position

This sounds
daunting, but internet squabbling shouldn’t make us think it’s impossible. We
achieved near-total unanimity that Trump should be impeached, both times. On
other “reconstruction” issues, we’re working toward agreement: Supreme Court
reform went from a fringe thing in 2020 to something like the majority position
now.

It’s becoming
obvious that, whatever else is on the reconstruction agenda, ICE abolition must
be included. The agency is acting as a secret police force, ideologically loyal
to the far right—perhaps even to Trump personally, like a latter-day Praetorian
guard. They have, with the assistance of the executive branch and Supreme Court,
arrogated to themselves the power to stop and detain any person for any reason.
Unless stopped, it’s hardly insane to think that someday Immigrations and Customs Enforcement will functionally
assert the ability to summarily execute American citizens in broad daylight, on
camera, and in front of witnesses.

All this,
however chaotic, seems to have been the plan all along. It’s a simple trick
when you think about it: During fascism’s ascent, you endlessly insist on more
immigration enforcement. More funding, more powers, more agents. Once in power,
you then have a premade apparatus of violent control outside of the normal
checks and balances, one institutionally and culturally set up not to see its
victims—those who “aren’t supposed to be here”—as people. You don’t need to set
up a secret police to go after dissidents or targeted racial groups; you just
expand the definition of “not supposed to be here” to include them. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security recently called for “100
million deportations.” There aren’t anywhere near this many immigrants in
the United States. Rather, it’s around the size of the country’s nonwhite population.