Abolish ICE: The Case Against Institutionalized Cruelty and for a Rational, Humane Immigration Policy

Some institutions have no place in a civilized, democratic society. The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is one of them: its structure, function, and practices are fundamentally incompatible with human decency, democratic governance, and intelligent policy.

ICE must be abolished. The “immigration problem” itself must be abolished: it is a myth.  

Instead, immigration must be treated as a regulated, enriching, and necessary process—much like trade in goods and services—subject to reasonable, humane rules that keep it fluid, safe, and beneficial. The existence of ICE, and the culture it represents, is a threat not only to immigrants, but to the moral and civic health of the United States of America.

State Terror versus Democratic Self-Government

No democracy can justify the existence of a domestic enforcement agency that behaves like a Secret Police—one that operates with impunity, terrorizes communities, and prioritizes punishment over justice. 

ICE’s tactics, its disregard for civil rights, and its penchant for secrecy mirror the worst excesses of authoritarian “internal security” forces. In the name of “safety,” ICE has become a machine for suffering, a bureaucracy of cruelty, and an affront to the values that the United States claims to uphold.

ICE’s Sinister Trail

ICE is not simply an agency beset by scandal; anyone looking honestly at its record must admit that its very operating principles undermine democracy. Due process is discarded. Transparency is ignored. Accountability is evaded. The recent history of ICE is one of mass detentions, indiscriminate raids, and systematic rights violations, culminating in events that shock the conscience. 

The killing of poet and legal observer Renee Good in Minneapolis—shot by an ICE agent while lawfully complying with orders issued by masked agents (her last recorded words to her killer were: “I’m not mad at you, dude”), then demonized as a terrorist by the Trump administration—exposes the reality: ICE does not exist to protect the public. It exists to enforce a vision of national purity and exclusion, using violence and fear to do so.

Journalistic reports indicate that the agency oversaw the removal of several hundred thousand people in less than a year (The Guardian cites Department of Homeland Security data as of mid-December showing a figure close to 350,000). The Guardian also reports that there were nearly 70,000 individuals held in detention by year-end and that ICE may have coerced nearly two million into “self-deportation” through intimidation and threat. 

Of course, these figures—also produced by DHS—might be inflated to please the fiercely xenophobic supporters of the current president. Still, this much is clear: labor shortages, families terrorized into seclusion and dependent for their basic necessities on human-rights defenders and neighbors, and traumatized children whose parents have suddenly disappeared now plague the nation.

Despite official rhetoric about targeting “the worst of the worst,” independent analysis reveals that over 75% of those detained lacked any criminal conviction. For years, Trump’s MAGA rhetoric has conflated immigration with violent drug trafficking cartels and governments he views with animosity. 

Yet it is notable that, after the “extraction” (i.e., kidnapping) of Nicolás Maduro, the de facto ruler of Venezuela, the “Cartel of the Suns”—the organization he was accused of leading—was eliminated from legal existence in Maduro’s indictment. This cartel had served as justification for illegal intervention in Venezuela and for the persecution of Venezuelans on U.S. territory. Along with the real but MAGA-rhetoric-enlarged “Aragua Cartel,” one of the battle songs of the anti-immigration crusade has suddenly gone mute.

The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people captured by ICE were not threats, just ordinary individuals, workers, families, asylum seekers—and even United States citizens!—caught up in a dragnet that treats foreignness and “otherness” as criminality. 

Speaking of “otherness,” totalitarian regimes are experts at manufacturing it—divide and conquer, create fear, and then pose as ‘protector’.’

It is no accident that the political far-right commentators on US social media have coined the hateful term AWFUL (Affluent White Female Urban Liberal) to demonize women who not only refuse to conform to the MAGA retrograde model of womanhood, but also dare to defend their immigrant neighbors and oppose the boot of a nascent police state.

Because the signs of such police-state mentality are all there: detention centers that have become holding pens for suffering. Overflowing, unsanitary, and often privatized, these facilities have seen deaths, medical neglect, and rampant abuse. Solitary confinement, a recognized form of torture, has been used on tens of thousands, including vulnerable children and those with mental illness. Legal representation is denied to most, ensuring that the machinery of detention and deportation operates without meaningful challenge.

ICE agents, trained for confrontation—the force has been doubled in a year, with a crash course reportedly lasting less than a year and dubious recruitment criteria—have become militarized enforcers, not public servants.

Lethal force is used with alarming regularity and almost never punished. The killing of Renee Good is emblematic: the official narrative is clearly contradicted by video evidence, witnesses are menaced, medical assistance is delayed, and federal authorities obstruct investigation. In fact, the State of Minnesota has been forced out of the investigation, leaving the inquiry in the hands of Trump-obedient functionaries who declared, minutes after the assassination of the poet, that she was a “domestic terrorist”: the verdict cast before any investigation had even started. The consequence: a culture of impunity that stains every action of the agency.

The continued existence of ICE is a direct threat to democratic governance. Democracy presupposes equal protection under the law, the presumption of innocence, and the right to due process. ICE undermines all three. Its raids and detentions disregard citizenship, targeting even those who are legally present or born in the United States. The agency’s operations are shrouded in secrecy, shielded from oversight, and—how else can we say it?—effectively immune to local accountability.

ICE’s practices normalize racial profiling, collective punishment, and the demonization of entire communities. Its expansion of militarized zones, use of force against unarmed civilians, and resistance to judicial oversight represent an assault on the very notion of government by the people. When a government empowers any agency to act as judge, jailer, and executioner—well, democracy is truly in peril.

Abolish the Foolish Myth of the “Immigration Problem”.

The justification for ICE rests on the myth of the “immigration problem”—the assertion that immigration is a danger to the nation, a source of crime, disease, and economic instability. 

That this narrative is false has been scientifically demonstrated. And demonstrated by the extraordinary achievement of the United States Economy: catching up in barely over a century with advanced Europe, where the industrial revolution began. 

Immigration is a natural, necessary, and beneficial process. It has enriched the United States for centuries, providing labor, culture, and innovation. The “problem” is not immigration itself, but the political exploitation of fear, the deliberate conflation of migration with threat.

Immigration, like trade, is best managed by reasonable, intelligent regulation. When goods enter the country, they are subject to inspection and sanitary controls, not criminalization. The same principle should guide immigration: establish clear, humane rules, screen for genuine risks, but facilitate the movement of people who seek to contribute to the nation. 

The Cruelty of the Anti-Immigrant Crusade 

The poison threatening the United States of America is not the immigrant, but the products and practices sanctioned by the country’s own institutional flaws—drugs, weapons, environmental harm, and financial corruption. ICE does nothing to address these dangers; instead, it scapegoats the vulnerable.

We have all seen the heartbreaking images: raids separating parents from children, detentions traumatizing the innocent, and deportations sending long-term residents into exile in unfamiliar, dangerous lands. The expansion of detention facilities—often run for profit—has created incentives for abuse, neglect, and the warehousing of human beings. The stories of “Alligator Alcatraz,” of solitary confinement and medical neglect, are not exceptions; they are the inevitable outcome of treating people as threats rather than as human beings.

The pattern of violence by ICE agents—shootings, assaults, and indiscriminate raids—reflects not a few bad actors, but a systemic problem. The agency’s training, culture, and mission are oriented toward confrontation, not service. The lack of accountability guarantees that abuses will continue. The killing of civilians, the obstruction of investigations, the labeling of victims as terrorists—these are not accidental failures of policy; they are the logical consequence of ICE’s design.

Can ICE be Reformed?

ICE is not reformable. Its problems are not incidental or the result of poor leadership; they are inherent in its founding mandate and organizational culture. Attempts at oversight have failed. Training reforms have been ignored. Legal challenges have been stonewalled. The agency’s mission—to police, detain, and deport—is fundamentally incompatible with human rights and democratic values.

How to Manage Immigration

Abolition of such a brutal and destructive institution as ICE is not an invitation to lawlessness or uncontrolled borders. Rather, it’s a call to replace a failed, cruel, and frankly authoritarian system with one that reflects the realities and aspirations of a modern, humane society. Abolition means ending the machinery of suffering, dismantling the structures of impunity, and building a system that is rational, transparent, and just.

A civilized, intelligent, and democratic approach to immigration rests on several pillars:

• Reasonable Regulation: Immigration should be governed by clear, fair, and flexible rules that respond to economic needs, humanitarian crises, and family reunification. Barriers should be minimized; processes should be transparent.

• Due Process and Legal Protections: Every person, regardless of status, must have access to legal representation, judicial review, and the presumption of innocence. Detention should be rare, brief, and subject to independent oversight.

• Community Integration: Newcomers should be welcomed, supported, and offered pathways to citizenship. Programs for language acquisition, employment, and civic participation should be expanded.

• Address Root Causes: The United States should work with other nations to address the drivers of migration—violence, poverty, climate change—rather than criminalizing those who flee them.

• Reject Scapegoating:  Political leaders—the Democratic Party, whether in power or in opposition, has failed catastrophically in this area—as well as what is left of professional, non-propagandist media, must forcefully combat the rhetoric that blames immigrants for social ills and instead focus on genuine solutions to the nation’s challenges. Instead of proposing ‘punishment’ for undocumented immigrants, they should develop and spread a constructive (i.e., realistic) narrative that favors orderly immigration. 

Astonishing as it may sound, the Democratic Party now stands far to the right of Ronald Reagan and both George Bushes on immigration. The irony is that Reagan—and not the Democrats—as well as Bush (Sr. and Jr.), actually spoke about ‘open borders’ with Mexico.

Some will say this vision is “extremist”. In reality, it is pragmatic, humane, morally and materially enriching, and consistent with the best traditions of democracy—in the United States and elsewhere—and with the universal creed of Human Rights. 

It recognizes—we must, we need!—that immigration is not a crisis, but an opportunity. It affirms that the true measure of a society is how it treats those who seek refuge and belonging.

Conclusion: No Gestapo, No ICEstapo—ABOLISH ICE.

ICE must be abolished. Its existence is a stain on the nation’s conscience, a threat to democracy, and a source of incalculable human suffering. The events of recent years—mass detentions, deaths in custody, militarized raids, and the killing of innocents like Renee Good—expose a system that cannot be salvaged. Reform is impossible; only abolition will suffice.

The “immigration problem” must be abolished as well—not by denying the reality of migration, but by rejecting the false, corrosive narrative that equates movement with menace. Immigration is natural, necessary, and beneficial. It is a process to be managed with intelligence, compassion, and respect for human dignity.

The United States of America stands at a crossroads. It can continue down the path of fear, exclusion, and authoritarianism—or it can live up to its self-identity and values: a nation of immigrants, a champion of liberty, and a beacon of hope. Abolishing ICE is not just a policy choice; it is a moral and civic necessity. The time to act is now. The future of American democracy depends on it.

If Germany did not need a Gestapo for the safety of its citizens—rather, the dictator needed it to accumulate and hold power—then the United States does not need an ICEstapo for its internal security. 

ICE, like the secret police of autocracies past, exists not to protect democracy, but to subvert it. It functions as the embryo of a tyrant’s private army: unaccountable, unchecked, and fundamentally at odds with the rights and freedoms it claims to defend. To preserve American democracy, and to honor the basic principles of humanity, ICE must be abolished. The safety and dignity of a nation depend not on institutions of fear, but on justice, openness, and the courage to reject the machinery of repression in all its forms.