Democratic lawmakers are split on the idea of abolishing the Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency amid the severe backlash the Trump administration incurred due to a zero tolerance immigration policy.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who sent a letter to the White House on Thursday questioning the president on how he plans to reunite separated migrant children with their detained parents, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that abolishing the agency is not the answer at this time.
“I think if you abolish ICE as it is, an executive agency, it reflects the policies of the White House — of the president,” Duckworth, D-Ill. said. “If you abolish ICE now, you still have the same president with the same failed policies. Whatever you replace it with is just still going to reflect what this president wants to do.”
[Tammy Duckworth: Democrats moving too far left will doom White House hopes]
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota echoed Duckworth’s concern during an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I think what has to change are the policies. And the people who are making these policies are making horrendous decisions like separating kids from their parents. We are always going to need immigration enforcement,” Klobuchar said. “We are a major country with major borders. To me, it’s ‘What are those policies?’”
Meanwhile, more left-leaning Democrats, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, have been adamant in their demands for the agency’s abolition. Saturday, many protests swept through the nation as a rallying cry against family separations that had resulted from Trump’s hardline immigration approach.
“We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting with replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality,” Warren said to a crowd of protesters.
Duckworth said she doesn’t see it quite that way, and insisted there are “a lot of things we could do” before making the move to replace the agency entirely.
“First of which, we’ve got someone in the White house who has these policies which are horrendous which you still hasn’t fixed,” Duckworth said. “And families are still separated, children are still in cages, nursing babies are still separated from their moms.”
