The hot debate to abolish ICE will leave Democrats in the cold

Democrats must stop confusing moral outrage with viable governance

Armed Federal Agents on Park Avenue in Minneapolis/Chad Davis

One night when I was in college, I saw a guy shouting next to a folding table out next to a bar with a sign that read: “Abolish the Police. Change my Mind”. This guy clearly thought the idea had enough merit to publicly argue for it on the streets of a liberal university town, so I decided to take him up on the challenge.

There was some back-and-forth—much more cordial than most of my encounters with street preachers and the like. Eventually, I got him to publicly reckon with the errors of his theory: he himself supported a large group of trained and experienced individuals who enforce the law using government-sanctioned force when necessary. He conceded those individuals would need equipment, training, and weaponry, and that in rare cases they would justifiably use force to uphold the law.

I felt it was worthwhile to leave it there, forcing him to accept either we needed the police—or Batman.

My point in that debate was simple: our society is rooted in the rule of law. Creating it, abiding by it, and improving it are all part of our grand experiment. The other part is enforcing it. When our institutions fail in carrying out that enforcement, we should be quick to criticize them. But we should do so constructively—in a way that allows for better error correction, not less by calling for its destruction.

The recent killings of American citizens by immigration agencies in Minneapolis have left Democrats with a similar sentiment as the guy in front of the bar: the instinct to respond to institutional failure by calling for abolition, rather than reform.

Do Democrats want to be right or win?

“Abolish ICE” is increasingly becoming both a slogan and a serious policy proposal on the left. I don’t want to suggest that this reaction is completely irrational or immoral. But I do think the idea is, at best, impractical and, at worst, a serious electoral liability.

Matthew Yglesias is someone whose ideas I follow quite often. I think one of his most important contributions came early in Trump’s second term, when he began laying out just how difficult it would be for Democrats to win back the Senate. The map and demographic trends are unforgiving. Without the Senate, even if Democrats manage to win the House, they’ll spend the next two years largely powerless—watching as the Trump Admin continues to harass citizens in their own neighborhoods. The judiciary will continue to be reshaped in long-lasting ways. Impeachment will be mostly symbolic. And to make it worse, Democrats will absorb more blame for economic turbulence and public dissatisfaction since they’d control part of Congress.

On the bright side, the 2026 Senate map also represents one of Democrats’ best opportunities to make gains for the foreseeable future. Given that reality, I think it’s worth taking seriously whether calling to abolish the very agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement helps or harms Democrats likelihood of winning both chambers in November.

Recent Wall Street Journal polling on major political issues shows that while Democrats have made gains since the start of Trump 2.0, they still trail Republicans by a long-shot on two key issues: border security and immigration enforcement.

The poll was conducted after the killing of Renee Good but before the killing of Alex Pretti. Public opinion on Trump’s handling of immigration worsened after ICE agents shot and killed Good, but it hasn’t meaningfully slowed the administration’s enforcement agenda—either in Minneapolis or nationally, including the detention of American children. The reason for that is somewhat obvious: interior immigration enforcement remains popular.

Democrats beware: the online outrage over these shootings does not neatly translate into official support for abolition of ICE. Nor does it represent the nuance of public opinion in regards to these two tragic shootings in Minneapolis.

It’s true that Republicans who viewed the video of Good’s killing were less likely to say Good posed a threat to ICE agents. However, more Democrats and Independents were open to the idea of her being a threat after watching the video. Two-thirds of Independents said Good was not following ICE agents’ orders. In the more recent Pretti shooting, roughly half of Independents either believe the shooting was justified or are unsure.

Even as ICE’s approval declines, public support for immigration enforcement remains firmly on the Republican side. The vast majority of voters want immigration enforcement to exist—they just want it carried out safely, legally, and with accountability. To accomplish this, Democrats should propose reforms to interior immigration enforcement that align with public opinion.

Abolition should be plan Z, not plan A

When institutions that do important work fall short of our moral standards, we have a duty to improve them. The complication for Democrats is that immigration enforcement itself was a major reason Trump won in the first place. Many Americans wanted a president who would take enforcement seriously—and aggressively.

How do Democrats win public trust on immigration enforcement? By proposing popular reforms that hold the institution in higher standards. Arguing to abolish the institution responsible for that enforcement is to say interior immigration enforcement isn’t worth the time or energy, affirming Republican claims that the left doesn’t take the problem seriously at all.

Democrats can acknowledge the failures of agencies like ICE and still offer credible and popular alternatives that demonstrates seriousness about law enforcement.

For example, 84% of voters agree that people have the right to safely observe, record, and document ICE activities in public. Sixty-five percent support accountability legislation that would allow individuals to sue federal officers for constitutional violations. Seventy-one percent want an independent investigation into the killing of Renee Good. Other reforms—like restoring or increasing training requirements, mandating body cameras, and requiring clear agent identification—are easy wins and broadly popular without denigrating the need for immigration enforcement.

Accountability measures like the ones I laid out are not radical ideas; they are baseline expectations for any law enforcement body. Even if we dislike how the institution currently operates, the underlying responsibilities do not disappear and neither do their errors. To be fair, I do think that’s what many Democrats mean by “abolish ICE”—that the Trump Admin has gone too far with enforcement operations. But we shouldn’t be arguing for full abolition if that’s not what we mean.

Does anyone know what abolish ICE actually means?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement enforces immigration law inside the United States and investigates cross-border crime. It consists of two primary branches: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

ERO is responsible for locating, detaining, and deporting undocumented immigrants. It operates detention facilities and executes removal orders. This is the branch most people are referring to when they talk about ICE or advocate for abolishing it. HSI, by contrast, investigates serious crimes connected to international trafficking, smuggling, financial crime, cybercrime, and child exploitation, both domestically and abroad.

One important detail often missed in public discussion is that the agents who shot Pretti were not ICE agents at all—they were with Customs and Border Protection.

Border Patrol is tasked with patrolling ports of entry and areas near the border, intercepting illegal crossings, drugs, and weapons. Which raises an obvious question: if the administration’s stated goal is interior immigration enforcement, what the hell is Border Patrol doing in Minneapolis—more than 250 miles from the… Canadian border? My best guess is it likely reflects how little statutory constraint exists on the executive branch’s discretion over these agencies.

As of late 2025, more than 2,000 CBP agents have been deployed to at least 25 interior U.S. cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Charlotte. Rather than abolishing ICE, Democrats could argue for jurisdictional clarity: keeping Border Patrol at or near actual borders, where unauthorized entry occurs. Limiting interior deployments would significantly reduce unnecessary interactions between militarized border agents and the general public—a major cause of the recent killings of citizens in Minneapolis.

The real head scratcher is that support for Border Patrol is a net-positive after they killed Pretti. To me, that signals the American public doesn’t really know the differences between the departments or they don’t know how much CBP has infiltrated the operations.

When it comes to ICE itself, the reality is that interior immigration enforcement is necessary. Both Minneapolis shootings involved veteran agents who served under multiple administrations of different parties. It’s tempting to assume ICE is entirely staffed by untrained MAGA loyalists acting with impunity, but that narrative isn’t accurate—and it definitely won’t win Democrats the Senate.

I’ve seen some suggest dispersing ICE’s duties across other agencies, but this ignores how specialized their functions are and the potential strains on other departments. We’ve already tried this approach historically: ICE CBP, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) are all descendants of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which handled immigration enforcement for decades. Claims that “we were fine before ICE” overlook the fact that we’ve had ICE-like interior enforcement since before World War II.

ICE exists to fulfill a specific and legitimate purpose. And those purposes are generally popular. It isn’t irredeemably broken or beyond reform.

Institutions are made up of people, and people can be trained, held accountable, replaced, and improved. Democrats should focus on doing exactly that, rather than repeating a political mistake they can’t afford to make again.