More than anything, “Abolish ICE” distills neatly into four syllables the Left’s anger over the treatment of illegal immigrants under President Trump. It’s a slogan rooted in something more visceral than substantive, much like “repeal and replace.”
For Democrats, there’s no alliterative effect to squeezing “replace” into their catchphrase (though that turned out to be more of a cosmetic flourish for Republicans anyway). It should not be lost, however, that the party actually has no concrete plan to replace the department they seek to abolish. Some say they do. Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., have creatively assured the public their approach to ICE would not involve so much a total abolition as a “[start] from scratch” or a “reimagin[ing]” of the agency. (“Reimagine and replace,” might make a nice 2020 slogan for Gillibrand.)
