Nixon and Ocasio-Cortez on abolishment of ICE

Cynthia Nixon on ABC News:

“I think it’s important to know also parents and children aren’t just being separated at the border. They are being separated throughout this country by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. I think we need to abolish ICE. That seems really clear. They have strayed so far from the interests of the American people and the interests of humanity.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in an interview on Democracy Now, less explicitly:

“I didn’t take on the president much at all, because we know—here in our district, we know that we’re united against this administration. And, for me, it was very important to not talk about what I was running against, but to talk about what I’m running for, because, to me, saying something like “abolish ICE” is an implicit—it’s an implicit rejection of the current administration’s policies, and it’s going a step further, to advance the causes of justice.

“First of all, ICE is not BPD [i.e. Customs and Border Protection]…what ICE is—you know, when we talk about abolishing ICE, we’re talking about ending family detention. We’re talking about—we’re talking about ending an agency and ending a practice and a structure that is not accountable to the U.S. Department of Justice, that often takes on things that look a lot like enforcement activities. And so, to have an enforcement agency that operates outside of the accountability of the Department of Justice, it’s no surprise to see the violations of civil and human rights that we’re seeing right now.”

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *