Kerby Anderson

What started out as a slogan and a bumper sticker has essentially become a platform of one political party. I am talking about the call to “Abolish ICE.” ICE stands for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

In some respects, the call to abolish ICE is not new. Fifteen years ago, you could find some activists calling for the dismantling of ICE because they perceived that the agency violated civil rights. But the call to abolish ICE has new energy because some Democrats are trying to move the party further to the left.

By the way, we aren’t just talking about self-described socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Many Democrats who will be running for the presidency in two years also call for the abolishing of ICE. That is why it is likely that this idea will make its way into the Democratic platform.

Republican candidates around the country have seized on this political slogan in order to paint their Democratic opponents as extreme. And it is likely that the “Abolish ICE” slogan may indeed hurt some of those candidates in the midterm elections, especially when some in the Democratic Party compare immigration officials to the Nazi secret police.

But Republicans might also want to be prepared to answer some important questions. If you think the idea of abolishing ICE is such a bad idea, why have so many Republican candidates called for the abolition of the IRS as well as the abolition of the departments of Energy, Education, and Commerce? I think there are good answers to such questions, but they better be prepared if they want to ridicule the idea of abolishing ICE.

Democrats in the House and Senate are preparing how they would go about abolishing ICE once they flip the House and Senate to Democratic control. Of course, this presupposes that Democrats take both the House and Senate. But first, we will need to see if this slogan helps them take control of Congress. It’s possible that this slogan will cause them to lose elections.