The fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent last week outraged many Democratic officials, who have watched with increasing alarm and anger as federal officers have swooped into cities across the country.
State and local officials in Minnesota and Illinois are suing the Trump administration to try to block the raids, which have sown chaos in their cities. Democratic members of Congress are demanding more oversight over ICE and its tactics, and some are trying to tie their demands to budget talks. A group of House Democrats have called for impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
And some Democrats running for Congress in blue districts around the country have revived a phrase from the first Trump administration: “Abolish ICE.”
It is a slogan that many Democrats had hoped to retire.
Immigration has arguably been the most vexing issue for Democrats in the Trump era. The Biden administration’s missteps on the issue — underestimating the scale of migration that their policies would allow and failing to anticipate the political backlash — helped pave the way for President Trump’s election to a second term.
Now, as the crisis in Minneapolis grows and Democrats struggle to effectively rein in tactics that they see as overly aggressive and possibly illegal, some Democrats worry that calls to eliminate the agency are an unwelcome distraction from more pragmatic approaches. They fear that the “Abolish ICE” slogan will age as poorly as “Defund the Police” did.
“Clearly ICE is an absolute problem — they’re out of control, moving way too fast,” said Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona. But Mr. Gallego, who has criticized other members of his party for kowtowing to the left, said that resuming “Abolish ICE” calls would hurt the cause. “The last thing we need to do, again, is to make the same mistake when it comes to ‘Defund the Police’ rhetoric. That ended up not actually helping communicate what people wanted. People want a slimmed-down ICE that is truly focused on security.”
For months, polls have suggested that support for the Trump administration’s immigration policies has been falling, with a majority now saying that the administration is doing “too much” on deportations. A CNN poll released Wednesday found that 51 percent of Americans believed that ICE enforcement actions were making cities less safe.
Now, Democrats believe they have an opportunity to reframe the debate about the administration’s enforcement tactics by casting it as overreach in need of oversight. The shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week refocused national attention on the raids, particularly on the masked federal agents who have moved to expel people who are in the country without legal status even if they do not have criminal backgrounds, questioned American citizens on the streets and clashed with protesters in chaotic scenes.
Democrats grew increasingly concerned after another shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening, where officials said that a federal agent had shot and injured a man at a traffic stop. And they were alarmed by President Trump’s threat on Thursday morning to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell protests there.
The moment has uncovered a still-simmering tension within the party: Some Democrats are eager to take an even more forceful stance against the administration’s tactics.
Micah Lasher, who is running in a crowded primary to represent a congressional district in Manhattan, posted “Abolish ICE” on X last week and argued in an interview that it was time to do away with the agency, which was established in 2003 as part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security.
“ICE has become the embodiment of a thugocracy and a growing number of Americans, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum, feel that this is an entity that should be dismantled,” said Mr. Lasher, a state lawmaker who worked in the administrations of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. Kathy Hochul. He described ICE as a “completely unchecked, almost militia-like, organization.”
Representative Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, plans to introduce the “Abolish ICE Act” in the House to dismantle the agency. In Chicago, Patty Garcia has made abolishing it a central part of her campaign for Congress, and on a lighter note the city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, recently voiced his support to officially name a city snowplow “Abolish ICE.” That drew the ire of Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief.
But some Democrats caution that calling for the outright elimination of ICE is a trap that will only help Republicans. Third Way, a centrist Washington-based think tank, released a memo Tuesday urging Democrats not to take up the ‘abolish’ mantel, warning that “when the debate sinks into polarizing slogans that read as anti-law or anti-safety, space for practical reform disappears.”
“Every call to abolish ICE risks squandering one of the clearest opportunities in years to secure meaningful reform of immigration enforcement — while handing Republicans exactly the fight they want,” the authors wrote.
Indeed, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee seemed to relish the idea that more Democrats were embracing the term.
“The radical ‘Abolish ICE’ crusade from far-left Democrats seemed like a relic of the past, but it’s the brand-new litmus test for Democrats who are barely hanging on and begging on their knees to get approval from their socialist base,” the spokesman, Mike Marinella, said in a statement.
Democrats have taken a number of different approaches on the issue.
Representative Robin Kelly, a Democrat from Illinois, has introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary Noem, whom she has called incompetent and a disgrace.
“I definitely know there needs to be a lot of reform, if not complete abolishment,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of people who said they voted for him and they didn’t think this was going to be the result. They thought, yes, murderers and rapists off the street, but I think people feel like he’s overreaching, and going too far.”
But some Democrats believe that the only way to meaningfully change the agency is by eliminating it.
“ICE is acting like a rogue agency, it doesn’t follow American norms and the fact that they basically have impunity in the law is even crazier — they’re just this force of power,” said Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin who supported the earliest calls to abolish ICE. “I think the public is actually leading us to a place where they’re saying this is not America, this is not acceptable. I think that sentiment is significantly different from when I introduced this in the first Trump administration.”
Even some Republicans have begun to publicly caution against the kind of headline-grabbing tactics used in many of the enforcement operations.
“ICE needs to concentrate on what the president promised, which was deportation of the bad hombres,” said Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican who represents Miami. “The overwhelming majority of the illegal population is not that and they have been here for a long time working.”
Ms. Salazar has warned that the administration’s approach puts the gains Republicans have made with Latino voters at serious risk. She has introduced a bill to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to adjust their legal status and in some cases become citizens.
“I don’t want the Hispanic community, my community, to believe or to think that the G.O.P. doesn’t love them,” she added.
Democrats in Congress are debating whether they should try to hold up funding for the agency at the end of this month as they try to force changes.
“The agency needs to change and it’s going to take a long time for it to regain the trust of the American people,” said Representative Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota who faulted ICE for detaining American citizens and profiling people during raids. “We want law enforcement to conduct their jobs in the right way.”
Jennifer Medina is a Los Angeles-based political reporter for The Times, focused on political attitudes and demographic change.
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