Cynthia Nixon, a former actor who is running to be New York’s next governor, wants to “abolish” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency under the Department of Homeland Security that she thinks is a “terrorist organization.”
“ICE has strayed so far from its mission. It’s supposed to be here to keep Americans safe, but what it’s turned into is frankly a terrorist organization of its own that is terrorizing people that are coming to this country,” Nixon told NY-1 late Thursday.
The 52-year-old star from HBO’s “Sex and the City” launched a petition on her campaign website urging supporters to take a more aggressive stance against ICE than the current Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who also does not support local law enforcement agencies cooperating with ICE’s federal detainer requests for illegal immigrants who have been arrested.
“It’s time to abolish ICE … There are so many steps between where we are now and a fair immigration system. But this is the first step: Sign my petition to say you agree we must abolish ICE and do everything possible to shield New York families from Trump’s rogue immigration agents,” Nixon’s website states.
On Thursday, while appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Nixon first called for the abolition of ICE over its role in housing migrants who have illegally entered the country at the southern border.
[Related: Cynthia Nixon: Trump should sign more executive orders ‘protecting all of us from him’]
ICE is primarily responsible for carrying out federal immigration laws in the interior of the country, while U.S. Customs and Border Protection handles most border operations. It issued a short statement in response.
“Disappointment with long-standing immigration laws should be directed towards Congress, not heroes in uniform,” an ICE spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
The agency was created in March 2003 and its two offices, Homeland Security Investigations as well as Enforcement and Removal Operations, carry out more than 400 federal statutes related to immigration. It is the second-largest criminal investigation organization after the FBI.
When an illegal immigrant is taken into law enforcement custody, ICE agents in that region of the country are alerted and can issue a warrant for that local agency to hold him or her for up to 48 hours until federal agents can pick that individual up from jail.
Hundreds of sanctuary cities and countries across the country have said they will not honor ICE requests to hold onto a criminal illegal immigrants. ICE then organizes “raids” in certain regions of the country where it will go after usually 50 to sometimes hundreds of the most wanted criminal illegal immigrants that were not held for them in jail. Those individuals are then put into removal proceedings.
[Also read: ICE chief: ‘I don’t think Congress wants to fix’ family separation problem]
