Abolishing ICE is codeword for open borders.
And Open Borders is where Democrats have been moving for a generation. Now that slow creep is a full out sprint.
While it’s been percolating, New York Socialist Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated the No. 4 Democrat in the House in a primary earlier this week, set the movement afire.
The NY Times reports:
To that point, the idea had largely been passed around on social media; among political candidates, Mr. Richardson was something of a lonely voice. But in the months since — as startling images emerged from the border of migrant children separated from their parents — the call to abolish or defund the agency has gained momentum in the midterm campaigns. Case in point: the shocking victory on Tuesday by an insurgent primary candidate in New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had made abolishing ICE a part of her platform….Still, the idea has been gaining momentum as a rallying cry of the far left, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory over an establishment Democrat gave it a newfound political currency. Then, on Thursday night, just hours after hundreds of immigration protesters had chanted “abolish ICE” on Capitol Hill, Kirsten Gillibrand became the first sitting senator to directly support the agency’s elimination.
Kirsten Gillibrand is an unusually craven politician, as she demonstrated when she turned on Bill Clinton — her mentor — and then Al Franken, to try to position herself as a leader of the #MeToo movement. That Gillibrand is jumping on the Abolish ICE bandwagon is not the least surprising and a sign that the base, which drives Democrat enthusiasm, is behind the idea.
It has positioned her to the left of Bernie, who opposes abolishing ICE, probably because he understands the implications for Democrat/Socialist changes in 2018. The Times notes that Abolish ICE will be portrayed as Open Borders:
Political strategists point out the political risk inherent in the movement: that Republicans will use it to portray Democrats as extremists who are weak on border control. “The other side is using the slogan to communicate to the country that this is a debate about open borders,” said Cecilia Muñoz, former director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council under President Obama.
Dem straight this is about Open Borders. And it will be an issue:
After Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, Republicans, who were apparently unaware that #AbolishICE had been circulating among liberals for months, immediately pounced in the hopes that the immigration nightmare the Trump administration has created could be turned into a political winner by portraying Democrats as soft on the border. “Every Democratic candidate could be asked now, maybe, ‘Do you agree or disagree with the new face of the Democratic Party that we should abolish Immigration and Customs and Enforcement?’ ” said White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. “We even had a credible potential candidate for president in 2020 suggest we get rid of ICE, the border enforcement agency,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
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