Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s evolution on the usefulness of Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues rapidly.
The 2020 Democratic candidate, who once called for the dismantlement of ICE, says now that the agency must focus its time and attention mainly on fighting the war on drugs and terror.
“When ICE comes into our communities and takes our neighbors, friends, and family members, they do not make this country safer,” the Massachusetts senator said at a campaign event held at the Umstead Park United Church of Christ in Raleigh, North Carolina. “We need ICE and Custom and Border Patrol to focus on real threats — from terrorism, container ships, contraband, fentanyl.”
Although these comments are consistent with Warren’s generally negative opinion of ICE, it nevertheless marks a shift in her overall position on the usefulness and purpose of the immigration enforcement agency. Indeed, it was just last year that the senator advocated for replacing ICE altogether with something entirely new.
“Today, I’m joining Americans from across the country as we rally, march, and speak out against the Trump Administration’s cruel and inhumane zero-tolerance immigration policies,” Warren announced on Facebook in June 2018.
She added, “The President’s deeply immoral actions have made it obvious that we need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our values [emphasis added].”
By July of this year, however, Warren evolved from calling for the abolition of ICE to promising only to prosecute abusive agents.
“President Trump and his Administration are comfortable looking the other way while criminal abuses of immigrants pile up. When I am President, I will not,” Warren announced in a Medium blog post. “I’ll designate a Justice Department task force to investigate accusations of serious violations — including medical neglect and physical and sexual assaults of detained immigrants — and give it independent authority to pursue any substantiated criminal allegations.”
She added, “Let there be no ambiguity on this: If you are violating the basic rights of immigrants, now or in the future, a Warren Administration will hold you accountable.”
If I did not know any better, I would say Warren is off the idea of completely abolishing ICE. It seems now that she wants only for the agency to be reformed. This idea is supported by her recent comments calling on the department to focus its energies on stopping terrorists and the drug trade as opposed to, you know, immigration enforcement.
Also, for what it is worth, Warren floated the idea this weekend of suspending deportations for as long as it takes for Congress to agree to a solution to the crisis at the border.
“I am open to suspending deportations, particularly as a way to push Congress for comprehensive immigration reform,” Warren said.
Don’t hold your breath. If this is anything like her position on abolishing ICE, she will change her mind in a couple of months.
