Here’s Why Abolishing ICE Is a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea
The Left has a new crusade: pushing to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s not because all federal bureaucracies are wasteful, incompetent, and inefficient, a claim that besides surely being true is appealing across the political spectrum. They claim the agency is a “deportation force” ripping families apart.
Erasing the country’s ability to vet who comes into our country is not just being embraced by the radicals of the so-called “resistance,” but increasingly by Democratic Party politicians. The stance was largely confined to the op-ed pages of left-wing and libertarian publications until U.S. senator and likely 2020 presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) supported it. . .
But the demands for abolishing ICE are not about limiting government corruption through reducing its size. Merely eliminating the agency would make America less safe and put the American people at risk. If if another organization merely replaces it instead, that would ultimately accomplish nothing. It would be an expensive symbolic gesture.Either one would also create an incentive to increase illegal immigration. . .
ICE was created in 2003 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks as a part of the Department of Homeland Security, taking over from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. INS failed to catch five of the nine 9/11 hijackers who overstayed their visas. ICE was created because the INS had proved ineffective at enforcing immigration laws.
ICE incorporated the internal enforcement powers of INS and the investigative and intelligence services of the U.S. Customs Service. It has two departments, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). HSI focuses on things such as arms smuggling, drug trafficking, and other crimes. Here’s an example of some of their work:
Humacao man sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for production of child pornography https://t.co/GOeFEvVHhB pic.twitter.com/x7nMUWWEfb
— ICE (@ICEgov) July 5, 2018
A 41-year old VA man faces up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 after pleading guilty to trafficking large quantities of contraband cigarettes across state lines for redistribution & resale in a case investigated jointly with @ICEgov HSI. https://t.co/Aq59VyZgx5
— National IPR Center (@IPRCenter) July 5, 2018
(Read more from “Here’s Why Abolishing ICE Is a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea” HERE)
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