Two blog posts claiming the media incorrectly reported that 19 ICE agents called for ICE to be abolished were flagged by Facebook users. “No, 19 ICE agents didn’t write a letter asking to abolish ICE, but the media ran with that anyway,” a post from BizPac Review (BPR) argued. The blog Barracuda Brigade touted the same, heavily citing BPR’s report in a post titled “Fake News Busted: No, 19 ICE Agents Didn’t Write A Letter Asking To Abolish ICE, But The MSM Ran With It.”
The letter, originally reported by the Texas Observer, was sent to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last week. Nineteen agents of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) branch of ICE proposed “to restructure ICE into the two separate, independent entities of HSI and [Enforcement and Removal Operations].”
“HSI developed a platform that would support the full homeland security enterprise and operations to counter the exploitation of international trade, travel, and finance by terrorists and international criminals,” the letter said. Meanwhile, “ERO has become very effective and efficient at detaining and removing illegal aliens.”
The agents argued that “the two ICE sub-agencies have become so specialized and independent that ICE’s mission can no longer be described as a singular synergistic mission; it can only be described as a combination of the two distinct mission (i.e., ‘Enforcement/Removal and Transnational Investigations’).”
So did these agents call for the “agency to be disbanded” as Fox News claimed? (Other outlets used words such as “dissolve” and “abolish.”)
The letter calls for ICE to be “restructured,” not “disbanded.” So the distinction here comes down to whether the word choice accurately conveys the plain meaning of the original. “Disbanded” could mean to “go separate ways, so claiming that the agents called for ICE to be “disbanded” is perhaps more accurate than stating that they said it should be “abolished” as outlets such as Think Progress claimed. But both verbs still miscommunicate what the letter was actually requesting.
(Also, it is probably fair to say that the public’s perception of what ICE does is limited primarily to the efforts of ERO, and the letter is not proposing to eliminate ERO.)
Headlines from certain news outlets could be more accurate by citing the letter’s use of “restructure” instead of the more confusing language of “dissolve” and “abolish.” Beyond the headline, however, most of these reports accurately communicated the letter’s proposition. Yet another reason why readers should never stop at the headline.
If you have questions about this fact check, or would like to submit a request for another fact check, email Holmes Lybrand at [email protected] or the Weekly Standard at [email protected]. For details on TWS Fact Check, see our explainer here.
