HOW TO CONVINCE* MOST OF** YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS IN 10 MINUTES OR LESS THAT IT’S TIME TO #ABOLISHICE, WITH FACTS (AND JOKES)

Abolish ICE.

Hello, it’s your friendly neighborhood immigration attorney here to help you spread the word on why the time has come to #AbolishICE. Maybe you’ve never thought it about before, and maybe (and I do understand this) it sounds too radical to support if you have. But this is one of the most important progressive political movements of the Trump era, and it’s about to define the November midterms. And it’s also really nowhere near as extreme a solution as it sounds at first once you’ve had a few minutes to really think about it.

So let’s do that.

1/ “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I *LOVE* ICE!”

(A) That’s… oh, wait.

(B) You might be confusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) with the solid state of the unique substance which is often created when hydrogen is doubly bonded with oxygen (“ice”).

(C ) Here is a quick field guide to the difference between frozen water and ICE:

1. Ice is good, treats injuries, and is an important component of figure skating & cocktails
2. ICE is bad, causes injuries, skates away from all responsibility for them, and makes me want a drink

(D) Abolish ICE

2/ “IMMIGRATION LAWS HAVE TO BE ENFORCED.”

(A) So do tax laws

1. And campaign finance regulations
2. And OSHA workplace safety standards
3. And EPA rules on clean drinking water

(B) All of which are civil statutes and regulations which (unlike mere unlawful presence in the United States) have potential criminal consequences

1. Yet somehow immigration law is the only federal civil administrative law responsibility we ever seem to hear about the government being absolutely serious about enforcing
2. What could possibly be the difference
3. Could this strict commitment to the rule of law in this singular context *maybe* have something to do with the race, ethnicity, national origins, religious affiliations, and/or socio-economic standing of the people ICE enforces against
4. No?
5. Are you *sure,* though

(C ) Imagine if the IRS had armed agents coming after anyone who owed more than, say, $5,000 in back taxes to work with local police to find them, kick their doors down, (and/or arrest them in public places), and detain them without bond in special IRS jails.

1. No, seriously: hold that thought in your mind.
2. Armed IRS agents cuffing, perp-walking, and jailing Wall Street traders, exploitative factory bosses, and shady CFOs around the country just because they didn’t keep up with their taxes…
3. Okay, actually that ended up sounding a lot more appealing than I meant it to be
4. But it’s not! No one wants to live in a country where tax collectors have the authority to jail citizens for civil tax violations

(D) Like IRS agents, immigration enforcement officers are mostly carrying out civil administrative law and *not* criminal statutes.

1. There are other ways to enforce the law which do not cause the widespread mental, physical, social, and economic harm that ICE does

(E) Asylum law is also immigration law

1. This administration is determined to ignore or diminish the rights of asylum seekers as far as the courts will allow

(F) Abolish ICE

3/ “ICE KEEPS US SAFE.”

(A) You might be confusing ICE with an agency which does criminal law enforcement

1. This is a common and understandable mistake!
2. Most of ICE’s work is not criminal law enforcement, as unlawful presence in the United States is not a crime and the people it is enforcing against (even those with criminal records) are subject not to criminal sentences but deportation and exclusion from future immigrant admission for civil immigration violations

(B) One of Trump’s first major acts as President was to eliminate the Obama administration’s established enforcement priorities and essentially declare open season on all undocumented immigrants in the United States. This is not only inhumane, but directly against the interests of public safety.

1. This totally unnecessary and uncalled-for policy change is why we’ve seen a wave of stories about ICE trying to deport single mothers, job creators, community leaders, a popular MIT janitor, and even just people who speak out against ICE.
2. Things have gotten so bad that ICE started routinely arresting undocumented people who showed up at their immigration interviews, literally those trying to “do it the right way” through one of the very few legal paths still available.
3. These easy cases allow ICE to get their deportation numbers up and terrify immigrant communities, rather than doing the difficult work of deporting violent criminals and gang members.

(C) Trump wants to triple the size of ICE and loosen hiring requirements. We know from the last time that we did this with a federal immigration agency that this could be *very* bad for public safety.

1. When Customs and Border Protection grew at a similar rate after 9/11, Politico found that this surge of underqualified, untrained, and improperly-supervised officers resulted in an average of one CBP agent being arrested each day for misconduct on the job between 2005–2011, a statistically-verifiable reputation as one of the most deadly law enforcement agencies in U.S. history, and a corruption problem so bad that the Obama administration had to change the definition of “corruption” for internal CBP purposes to avoid a massive political scandal

(D) ICE detention is extremely unsafe, with high rates of violence and abuse, and often extremely limited access to medical care.

(E) Deporting family members causes extreme trauma, behavioral problems, & economic disadvantage to children (most of whom are U.S. citizens)

(F) Abolish ICE

4/ “ICE DOES THINGS OTHER THAN IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT, LIKE INVESTIGATING DOCUMENT FRAUD AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING”

(A) Yes, it does

(B) But it mostly does immigration enforcement

1. And most of that is against people who have been in the U.S. for at least ten years and are no risk to the public

(C ) There are at least half a dozen federal agencies which already do (or could easily take on) the work that Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) is doing

(D) HSI has a terrible record of exploiting informants and subjecting them to deportation — often to the same country as the people they have just helped to arrest and convict — (and helping other agencies do this) once they are no longer needed

(E) Even HSI doesn’t want to associated with ICE and is calling for it to be disbanded.

(F) Abolish ICE

5/ “WE NEED MORE IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT, NOT LESS”

(A) The U.S. already spends more on immigration enforcement than ALL other forms of federal law enforcement COMBINED

1. MORE
2. than
3. ALL other federal law enforcement
4. COMBINED

(B) Tripling that was one of Trump’s earliest and most consistent campaign promises, and within days of his inauguration he signed an executive order expressing his intent to do it

(C) Once we ramp things up like that, can you imagine a point at which the U.S. decides it’s time to start *reducing* its deportation force?

1. Candidates are now forced to try to outdo each other in showing their support for immigration enforcement and pledges to fund ICE in lieu of actual meaningful immigration reform or an adult conversation about what how our system could actually better reflect our national values and priorities
2. Can you imagine wanting to live in a country where ICE is a constant, visible, ambient presence in everyone’s life
3. Because that is exactly where we’re going

(D) Abolish ICE

6/ “I DON’T LIKE WHAT ICE IS DOING EITHER, BUT WE HAVE TO BE REALISTIC AND UNITE TO DEFEAT TRUMP AND HIS AGENDA”

(A) ICE has only been a part of the federal government for 15 years

(B) It was created as a department of the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security, an agency formed in direct response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11

1. It’s time to re-think most of the governmental responses to 9/11 rushed through in the name of national security
2. They are becoming permanent to the point that we already have a generation nearing adulthood that can’t remember life before them
3. That is bad

(C ) Widespread immigration enforcement within the U.S. is a relatively new concept

1. There was a time within memory of most living Americans when it was barely being done at all

(D) Executive branch agencies are defunded and restructured constantly

1. ICE itself is a product of one such reform, and its abolition could easily be another

(E) The abolition of ICE is not at all necessarily a partisan mission

1. Anyone who identifies as a traditional small-government conservative, a federalist, a libertarian, and/or a Constitutional originalist should be able to get down with this cause
2. If they actually stop and think about it

(F) We all want to defeat Trump, but we need to get serious about actually addressing the massive systemic and institutional problems that he has made so obvious; defeating him just to replace him with candidates who will make us feel better about ourselves and our deeply flawed and divided country without a real commitment to change is exactly the wrong direction

(G) At least 40 viable progressive candidates for public office disagree with you, with more every day

(H) Abolish ICE

7/ “THIS SOUNDS TOO EXTREME FOR ME”

(A) Every form of abolition we now recognize as necessary and inevitable to human progress was called “extreme” at the time

1. (And then it happened)

(B) Simply wanting to de-escalate and revert the system back 15 years doesn’t make you a radical

(C) Silence is complicity

(D) Tolerance is complicity

(E) Speech without action is complicity

(F) Complicity is complicity

(G) Abolish ICE

8/ “ICE OFFICERS ARE PUTTING THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”

(A) Hoo boy are you really going to make me do this

1. I just really do not want to be the only one out there saying what I have to say here
2. But okay
3. *sound of scotch pouring into glass*

(B) Statistically, ICE agents are in less danger than nearly any other active duty federal law enforcement officers in the U.S.

(C) The majority of the non-citizens that ICE agents are investigating, arresting, and transporting do not have any history or risk of committing violence

1. The most common convictions on records of people arrested by ICE are unlicensed operation, drug possession, and DUI
2. But that’s only convictions. Most people now come into contact with ICE through arrests, and are taken into custody without a chance to resolve the pending state criminal charges
3. They are also FAR less likely to own guns (because they can’t)

(C) Only one ICE agent has *ever* been killed on the job in the U.S.

1. And that was immediately after he shot his supervisor during a performance review in the Los Angeles Field Office.
2. So in terms of actual statistical reality ICE agents are in *far* more danger of being killed by each other than by the people they are enforcing against.

(D) Abolish ICE

9/ “MAYBE WE DIDN’T NEED ICE BACK THEN, BUT WE LIVE IN A DIFFERENT WORLD NOW”

(A) Not so much, actually

(B) The U.S. had virtually open borders until 1924

1. Ellis Island doesn’t count
2. Again, European immigration was unlimited and unrestricted from 1790–1924

(C) Relative to the total U.S. population we have fewer immigrants in the U.S. in the past twenty years than we did coming in between 1890–1910, the high point of American immigration

1. If you are a white American by birth, there is a very good chance that some or all of your people immigrated to the U.S. during that time
2. Today they would have no basis for a visa and live in constant fear of deportation if they did make it here

(D) Abolish ICE

10/ “ICE STOPS THEM BEFORE THEY DO CRIMES!”

(A) You know that Minority Report was just a movie, right

1. I know, it was pretty good
2. I mean, I assume
3. I haven’t actually seen it in 16 years — does it hold up, or
4. Anyway, we don’t actually have pale androgynous cyberpeople who can point out who is going to do the crimes while floating in vats
5. If we did, they wouldn’t work for ICE

(B) Non-citizens (including the undocumented) are no more likely to break the law than anyone else and actually notably *less* (and this is statistically, verifiably, objectively true) likely

1. Associating people with criminality based on race, ethnicity, religion, and/or national origin is bigotry
2. No one but fellow bigots actually likes bigots
3. Even in 2018
4. Even if your guy won almost entirely on public displays of it
5. Please stop
6. That was your warning
7. I really didn’t want to have to block you

(C) Abolish ICE

11/ “DO YOU REALLY WANT ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE TO LOSE THEIR JOBS?”

(A) If those jobs are as ICE agents, than yes

(B) At its largest, the Bureau of Prohibition had about 3,000 prohibition agents tasked with cleansing the United States of potable alcohol. Proportionally to the U.S. population, that’s actually more than the ~5,000 active ICE agents now in active service on the ground.

(C ) By the time the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition, history does not record “but they’ll lose their jobs!” as a serious objection

1. It won’t here either

(D) Proper funding, career training, and preferential federal hiring practices could help ICE agents take all the time that they need to make a smooth transition into other careers after ICE is abolished

1. Of course by then the agency could very well be so thoroughly despised by the American public that no one wants to hire a former ICE officer

(E) Abolish ICE

12/ “BUT WE NEED AN ENTIRE AGENCY DEDICATED SOLELY TO IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT”

(A) What if I told you that we… don’t

(B) Very few other countries do

(C) Creating an agency which only does immigration enforcement re-centers the national conversation on immigration away from how and why our immigration law and policy work for the needs of the people it is supposed to serve to debates around funding/resources and how we can increase deportation numbers each year

1. This debate will inevitably come down to accusing people who want to reduce funding/resources for ICE of threatening public safety.
2. Given this climate in which to thrive, ICE will only continue to grow — and with its size its power within the federal government and our inability to control it.

(D) Abolish ICE

13/ “THE PROBLEM ISN’T THE AGENCY, IT’S THE WAY IT IS USED UNDER THIS ADMINISTRATION”

(A) The problem is absolutely the agency

(B) Even when President Obama set reasonable enforcement priorities to try to emphasize public safety, the majority of people sent to ICE custody came into the system through driving without a license or a similar motor vehicle violation

(C) The way it is used right now under Trump is especially bad

1. But the problem is fundamentally with the concept of having an entire nearly-independent wing of the executive branch which only does immigration enforcement.
2. That was never a good idea
3. It was never going to be a good idea
4. If it gets much larger and gains just a little more power, it will be a very bad idea

(D) Abolish ICE

13/ “OKAY, SO WE #ABOLISHICE. THEN WHAT?”

(A) We no longer have a rogue secret police force within the United States armed with guns, helicopters, tactical gear, and brutal interrogation training under the direction of a former CIA operative terrorizing immigrant communities and permanently traumatizing children for administrative violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act

(B) Were you… thinking that something should rush in to replace that, or

(C) While it wasn’t perfect, INS’s immigration enforcement was done by a division of the agency called “Field Operations” which did most of what ICE is doing now

1. That was under the direct supervision and in conjunction with the other parts of the Service
2. Which was at the time a division of the Department of Justice

(D) Abolish ICE

14/ “DEFUND ICE?”

(A) Okay!

(B) But also

(C) Abolish ICE

15/ “ABOLISH ICE.”

(A) Abolish ICE

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• immediately *convincing* everyone is not necessarily the point (although I think there are some strong points here); more than anything #AbolishICE needs to be included as part of the immigration conversation and seen as a viable policy option. Because it is.

**your smartest and best-looking