The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was never one of the elite federal groups. It was the TSA of federal agencies, unlike the FBI, Secret Service or Postal Inspectors, who were highly regarded whether they deserved it or not. But ICE? It was not where the best and brightest wanted to work. Accordingly, it was staffed by the dregs of federal law enforcement, the people no other agency would take. And that was largely fine given the limits of its jurisdiction and purpose.

But that was before mass deportations became the primary focus of the federal government, and ICE was loosed on the streets to act without legal or constitutional constraint, a price Stephen Miller and the MAGA faithful were willing to pay to rid the nation of illegal aliens and anybody else they deemed undesirable Americans. The agency has since run amok, flipped the process on its head by demanding, at will, people prove their citizenship and wantonly engaging in violence and destruction along the way. The administration has backed them without reservation, making up any story necessary to justify their brutal actions without shame.

Can ICE be saved? Ilya Somin argues that it’s too late, that the agency has fallen too far from the law to change its culture, its dubiously qualified staff often solicited by white supremacist dog whistles, it’s wanton brutality. ICE must be abolished.

Recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  depredations in Minnesota further strengthen the already compelling case for abolishing the agency. A recent federal district court ruling outlines in detail ICE’s extensive use of force against peaceful protestors, violations of a variety of constitutional rights, and other cruel, unjust and illegal actions.  Moreover, it is clear that these wrongs are not just the fault of a few rogue agents, but structural defects in the agency and its mission, exacerbated by the Trump administration’s enormous expansion of it, and hiring of numerous dubious new recruits. The agency doesn’t even follow its own supposed safety guidelines, which neglect was one of the reasons for the indefensible killing of Renee Good.

These widespread abuses have turned already skeptical public opinion further against ICE, to the point where a substantial majority of Americans disapprove of the agency, and – for the first time – a narrow plurality want to see it abolished.

This is not to say that the functions for which ICE existed should not be fulfilled. Immigration laws need to be enforced. Customs laws need to be enforced. The simpletons can’t seem to grasp that the abolishment of ICE isn’t about open borders or embracing criminal aliens, but about a federal agency that’s so badly failed to function within the constraint of the law, that has more money than the rest of federal law enforcement combined, that is staffed by the dregs of federal law enforcement who hate immigrants and relish in their brutality toward them, not to mention citizens who look like them and citizens who stand by them. It’s not the name.

It’s not the concept. It’s the people. They are unsalvageable, even if not every ICE agent isn’t a thug. No doubt there are some decent people within the agency, although no one seems to be standing up to hold back their brethren on the street from illegal detentions and arrests, or needless violence.

Abolition is indeed the right approach. In an August 2025 article in The Hill, I outlined how to do it: by shutting down the agency and transferring its funds to state and local police. This strategy would have the virtue of  simultaneously further expanding political support for abolition,  reducing crime, and ending ICE abuses.

Ilya contends that the way to abolish ICE is to transfer the vast funding to state and local law enforcement.

[M]ost Democrats have hesitated to call for the agency’s abolition, probably for fear of seeming to be soft on crime…. But opponents can avoid such accusations by combining abolition of ICE with reallocation of its funds to ordinary police, which would undercut accusations of being pro-criminal or anti-law enforcement. This could greatly expand support for abolition….

In my 2022 book “Free to Move,” I proposed dismantling ICE and giving the money to ordinary police, perhaps in the form of federal grants to state and local law enforcement. Recipient agencies should be required to use the funds to target violent and property crime, and abjure ICE-style abuses.

No doubt better funding for state and local law enforcement, allowing them to put more cops on the street, would have a positive effect on reducing crime. But reducing crime was never the purpose of ICE. More importantly, it shouldn’t be the purpose of ICE, which doesn’t exist to replicate the functions of the other alphabet agencies. The nonsensical rhetoric surrounding ICE, intended to whip up the passions of the ignorant, is that the flood of immigrants that entered without authorization were murderers, rapists and drug dealers from South American prisons who brought a crime wave with them. This isn’t remotely true, but being true and being believed aren’t the same thing.

ICE had a specific and limited function. It was never a general law enforcement agency like the FBI and redirecting its funding to state and local law enforcement isn’t going to address the problem of undocumented aliens in the United States. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, whether by immigration reform or immigration law enforcement. But ICE can’t be trusted to do it, and has conclusively proven itself a danger to American citizens and lawful immigrants. It’s unfixable due to its personnel, its culture and its leadership. It’s got to go. But there will be no easy fix to replace it given how badly bastardized it has become. It will need to be rebuilt from the ground up, but ICE as it exists must be abolished.