The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, commonly known as ICE, began operations in 2003 as a result of a major reorganization of the federal government in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America that murdered nearly 3,000 innocent people. In a dangerous world, ICE’s main objective, plain and simple, is to keep the American people safe and secure. With 20,000 courageous employees, ICE’s mission centers on “smart immigration enforcement, preventing terrorism, and combating the illegal movement of people and goods.” After that horrible September morning almost 17 years ago, I witnessed something truly inspiring. I saw Americans from all walks of life come together and unite as a grieving nation. I watched as our government leaders moved forward together and make important decisions so that such a heinous act would be less likely to happen again. ADVERTISEMENT The Senate overwhelmingly passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which paved the way to establish ICE, by a margin Reasonable people can plainly see that ICE officials are under immense pressure on a multitude of fronts each and every day. They cannot let their guard down for one minute. President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE thoroughly understands this and has been working with congressional Republicans for months to try to come up with commonsense solutions to reform our immigration system to help ICE do its job of keeping Americans safe. But the Democrats have been nowhere to be found. They do not seem interested in compromise simply because of their juvenile dislike of President Trump. In fact, the position of the Democrats to date has been “our way or the highway.” Despite overture after overture from President Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill, the Democrats have chosen not to come to the table to negotiate in a constructive way. Now we know why. It is not just that they cannot stand President Trump. It has now become clear that the Democratic Party no longer cares about border security. In fact, some leading Democrats actually want to abolish ICE. After Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory over liberal swamp creature Joe Crowley Joseph (Joe) CrowleyJoe Crowley to register as lobbyist for recording artists Liberal advocacy group stirs debate, discomfort with primary challenges NY Democratic chair blasts primary challenge against Maloney MORE in the New York congressional primary on June 26, national Democrats like New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Kirsten GillibrandDemocratic feud erupts over scope of military sexual assault bill Overnight Defense: Austin, Bidens thank National Guard as Capitol mission ends | CBO estimates nuclear arsenal to cost 4B over 10 years | Senate Armed Services chairman backs change in prosecuting military sexual assault Senate Armed Services chair throws support behind changing roles of military commanders in sexual assault prosecutions MORE and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have gotten behind the “Abolish ICE” movement, thus pulling back the curtain to expose liberals for what they truly want. Cleary they believe that the heroes at ICE are an impediment to their misguided dream of an open borders utopia. This untenable position that national Democrats are taking on immigration and border security flies in the face of public opinion. In fact, just last week long time Clinton pollster Mark Penn released a study that found a whopping “84 percent of Americans favor turning undocumented immigrants over to federal agents.” But do not expect the flailing Democratic Party to pay attention to startling numbers like this because their unhinged radical base surely is not. The truth is, it was not so long ago that President Clinton was advocating for the very measures on border security that are now espoused by President Trump. If you are wondering where the Democratic Party of that era is, it is gone and never coming back. Tom Perez Thomas PerezClinton’s top five vice presidential picks Government social programs: Triumph of hope over evidence Labor’s 'wasteful spending and mismanagement” at Workers’ Comp MORE, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said as much when he recently described Ocasio-Cortez as the future of the Democratic Party. During his 1995 State of the Union address, President Clinton said, “That is why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.” If Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonContent of Biden's agenda trumps Republican complaints about process Marjorie Taylor Greene, Robert Reich trade barbs on Twitter Republicans lose patience with Arizona election audit MORE came to Capitol Hill today and said that to the Democratic caucus in the House, it is my guess he would be run out of town. That being said, it is time to put the “Abolish ICE” movement to the test. When Congress returns next week, Republicans should bring resolutions to the floor that express steadfast support for ICE and the brave men and women who work there to keep Americans safe day in and day out. David Bossie is the president of Citizens United and a contributor to Fox News. He was deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump and was chief investigator for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during the Clinton administration. Follow him on Twitter @David_Bossie.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — A day after an anti-ICE protestor scaled the base of the Statue of Liberty on July 4th, the White House is rolling out its own slogan — "SAVE ICE." With President Donald Trump eager for a battle with Democrats over the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the White House on Thursday sent out a fact sheet vowing to "SAVE ICE," warning that abolishing it would "erase America's borders and open the floodgates to more crime, drugs, and terrorism." "Calls to abolish ICE are an insult to these heroic law enforcement officers," the White House document states. ICE does not patrol the borders — that's the job of a separate agency, Customs and Border Protection. And most "Abolish ICE" advocates, who call it a "deportation force," want the agency's responsibilities transferred to a different part of the federal government, not eliminated entirely. Trump and the White House clearly think they have identified a political winner on immigration, the president's signature issue, using the fight over ICE to both portray Democrats as extreme and shift the conversation from the family separation crisis at the border, which is still far from resolved. "I hope they keep thinking about it, because they’re going to get beaten so badly," Trump told Fox News last week of the issue. "Abolish ICE," which began as an intentionally provocative online slogan, has taken off. Within the past three weeks, leading Democratic senators have endorsed the effort as more members of Congress join the cause seemingly every day. Recently, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and giant-slayer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated 20-year incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in a Queens/Bronx primary last month, got on board. Police talk to a woman who climbed to the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York on July 4, 2018. PIX11 / via AFP - Getty Images On Wednesday, the movement reached a new height, literally, when a woman climbed up the base of the Statue of Liberty after participating in an "Abolish ICE" protest to call attention to the plight of immigrants at the a monument that has welcomed many generations of them. Still, many other Democrats are rejecting the slogan, and those in favor of abolishing ICE number fewer than two dozen out of nearly 250 Democrats in Congress, according to a rough tally kept by NBC News. For instance, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-Texas, a progressive darling who is running for Senate against Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., has stopped just short of demanding the abolition of ICE — earning hackles from a participant at a recent town hall who said Democrats need to "grow a backbone" on the issue. "Don't lecture me about the border," O'Rourke shot back, according to the Texas Tribune. "I'm doing everything that I can right now."<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — Over the past several weeks, protesters, Democratic lawmakers and candidates, and even some federal agents have demanded an end to the government agency known as ICE, railing against President Trump’s immigration policies, which have produced heart-wrenching images of migrants being stopped at the southwestern border. But the campaign against ICE may be conflating an alphabet soup of government agencies and their various roles in immigration enforcement. ICE, for example, was not separating migrant families illegally entering the United States from Mexico. Here’s an explanation of what it is doing. What is ICE? ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. ICE was created in 2003, as a part of the government’s reorganization after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ICE is one of three agencies that absorbed and assumed the functions of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (which was previously housed under the Justice Department) and the United States Customs Service (which was part of the Treasury Department).<doc-sep>Are we going to have immigration limits or not? That's the question underlying the calls for the abolition of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE), the bureau within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for upholding our immigration rules away from the borders. ADVERTISEMENT Despite the efforts of some senior Democrats to try to tamp down the anti-borders fervor of their base for fear of political backlash, the energy in the Democratic party is clearly on the far left. In the words of activist Sean McElwee, a co-founder of AbolishICE.org: "I believe that every Democrat running in the 2020 Presidential Election will have to articulate a vision of a world without ICE." The most charitable interpretation of the #AbolishICE craze is that it's the left's version of the silly call by some on the right to abolish the IRS. If taxes are still going to be collected, and immigration laws enforced, then changing the initials of the agency doing the work is nothing but a political stunt. Even if it were simply a political stunt, the push to #AbolishICE would tell us something significant. Republicans who call for dissolving the IRS do so as a way of signaling the depth of their opposition to taxes. Likewise, #AbolishICE is a Democratic candidate's way of communicating to voters that he dislikes immigration limits and the enforcement required to make them meaningful. But the Democrats calling to eliminate ICE aren't simply engaged in empty posturing. The event that sparked the cascade of Democrats calling for the abolition of the immigration-enforcement agency was the upset victory of socialist Alexandria Ocacio-Cortez in a New York congressional primary. Her call for dissolving ICE is not just about the initials, but about the very laws that these overworked and underappreciated federal officers enforce. Under the heading "Immigration Justice / Abolish ICE", her campaign website argues "It’s time to abolish ICE, clear the path to citizenship, and protect the rights of families to remain together." The second item in this list means amnesty for illegal aliens, while the third point effectively means that illegal aliens with U.S.-citizen or legal-resident relatives will get to stay. The push to abolish ICE is the outgrowth of the growing belief on the left that no illegal alien should ever be deported unless they've been convicted of a non-immigration crime. Ocasio-Cortez alluded to this when she wrote that "We have to replace ICE with an updated INS-like structure that handles crime through the same court system we’ve had for well over 100 years." This is gibberish, of course, since INS agents did precisely the same thing as ICE agents working on immigration, most of which did not involve criminal violations of immigration law but civil ones, which are handled by deportation, not imprisonment. But this view predates the Democrats' latest socialist sweetheart. Rep. Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiGOP leaders face new calls to boot Greene Biden, Bass press for police reform after meeting Floyd family Kinzinger calls for Greene to be removed from GOP conference after Holocaust remark MORE (D-Calif.) said back in 2013 "Our view of the law is, if somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation." This is objectively false but shows how #AbolishICE grew out of mainstream Democratic party thought. And more: During one of the Democratic presidential primary debates, Both Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonHillary Clinton takes on conspiracy theories on Borat special Top general: Russia, China will look to expand influence in Middle East as US pulls back We have a chance to halt climate change if we stop destroying carbon sinks and cut methane MORE and Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersSenate competitiveness bill includes B authorization for Bezos space company Sanders wants government to get 'piece' of US semiconductor companies in exchange for aid Poll: 51 percent oppose Sanders-led resolution to block weapons sales to Israel MORE (I-Vt.) promised not to deport any illegal aliens who didn't have criminal convictions. Here's what they said to Univision anchor/activist Jorge Ramos: “RAMOS: And that you won't deport immigrants who don't have a criminal record? “CLINTON: That's what I'm telling you. . . . “RAMOS: And can you promise not to deport immigrants who don't have a criminal record? “SANDERS: I can make that promise.” The point of abolishing ICE is to end all non-criminal deportations of illegal aliens. That would mean that every foreigner who manages to slip past the Border Patrol or who overstays a visa would be permitted to stay forever, so long as he isn't convicted of an especially heinous crime. That would render our entire body of immigration law meaningless. The numerical caps on various categories and the requirements to qualify would be irrelevant because there would be no agency to enforce them. #AbolishICE means nothing if not unlimited immigration and open borders. Unlimited immigration is a defensible, if misguided, goal. But its proponents are not arguing for it honestly, explaining to voters why they should open America's borders to the world's poor. Instead, they're trying to fool voters by hiding behind a hashtag.<doc-sep>
As outrage over family separations at the southern US border continues to boil, protesters and even a number of Democratic politicians are increasingly calling for the abolition of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or Ice. Those calls reached a new dramatic pitch on Wednesday when a woman scaled the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and at least six protesters were arrested after hanging a banner calling for the abolition of Ice. What is Ice? Ice was created in 2003 when the Bush administration reorganized a number of federal agencies in response to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, and placed them under the brand new Department of Homeland Security. Ice, which now employs over 20,000 people, is one of three agencies that absorbed and assumed the functions of the now defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and the United States Customs Service. Ice is not the agency conducting family separations at the US border. Ice is not responsible for patrolling or securing US borders; that task falls to the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP). It is CBP agents who have been charged with enforcing the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, detaining migrants and asylum seekers at the border and initiating the separation of undocumented families. Instead, Ice is primarily tasked with what it calls Enforcement and Removal Operations: essentially the location, detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants who have already successfully crossed the border and are living in the US. Under President Barack Obama, the unit prioritized removing those undocumented immigrants who had committed serious crimes, but the Trump administration has broadened its mandate to target anyone in the US illegally. Why is Ice controversial? In January 2017, the president signed an executive order to increase the agency’s staffing by 10,000 employees. The order also vastly expanded Ice’s immigration enforcement powers. The agency also houses a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit which targets major border-related crimes such as the trafficking of drugs, weapons and human beings, as well as a much smaller legal services department. Because of this multipart structure, even some Ice agents believe it should be abolished, although likely not in the way that activists are calling for. In a letter to the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, earlier this week, 19 HSI agents expressed concern that Donald Trump’s hardline crackdown on undocumented migrants has made it harder for them to conduct effective investigations into significant national security issues. Annual immigration arrests have soared since January 2017, from 110,568 in 2016 to 143,470 last year, although they still remain below the height of annual arrests under Barack Obama’s administration.