Socialist Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a national television appearance Sunday to renew his call to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, suggesting the agency is unnecessary in part because it is younger than he is.
According to the Daily Caller, Mamdani made the remarks during an interview with ABCs Jonathan Karl on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, where he was pressed on how immigration laws should be enforced if ICE were dismantled and where, in his view, they shouldnt be enforced.
Karl noted that Mamdani, who assumed office Jan. 1, has repeatedly demanded that ICE be abolished, a position that aligns him with the partys most hard-left elements and sharply at odds with those who see border enforcement as a basic function of national sovereignty.
Karl asked Mamdani directly how he would handle immigration enforcement without ICE, and the mayor responded with a vague appeal to tone rather than law. You do it with a little bit of humanity, Mamdani claimed, offering no concrete alternative structure for carrying out deportations, detentions, or investigations.
The interview, recorded Friday, came just one day before Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, an incident that Democrats quickly seized upon to intensify their attacks on federal immigration enforcement. Mamdani, who has built his brand on socialist rhetoric and open-borders sympathies, used the platform to question the very legitimacy of ICE as an institution.
You know, immigration existed long before ICE, the socialist mayor added, attempting to minimize the agencys role in modern border security. ICE is a modern creation. Im older than ICE.
Karl pushed back, noting that some form of enforcement has always existed to uphold immigration rules and protect the border. But youve always had an org whatever you call it, youve had an organization to enforce those rules, Karl followed up, underscoring that the issue is not whether enforcement exists, but who carries it out and how.
Mamdani tried to draw a distinction between ICE and any legitimate enforcement body, portraying the agency as uniquely lawless. I would separate ICE from an organization that looks to enforce these rules, Mamdani replied. ICE is an organization that cares little for the rules. Its an organization that operates with reckless impunity and seems to revel in the flouting of those kinds of rules. And thats what gives people a real sense of fear. ICE agents are masked. You oftentimes have no idea.
He went further, alleging that the agencys supposed lack of transparency invites impersonation and abuse. The mayor claimed there have been instances in this country of people pretending to be ICE agents because they know that theres no identification.
In reality, ICE was created in March 2003 under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, a bipartisan measure signed by President George W. Bush in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, while Mamdani himself was born in 1991. Before ICE, its core responsibilities were handled by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, established in 1933, and the U.S. Customs Service, which dates back to 1789, both of which were dissolved when Congress reorganized federal homeland security functions.
After news broke Saturday that Border Patrol agents had shot and killed a man later identified as Pretti, Mamdani escalated his rhetoric on social media, writing on X, ICE terrorizes our cities. ICE puts us all in danger. Abolish ICE. While ICE and Border Patrol are distinct agencies, both fall under the Department of Homeland Security, which was specifically designed to coordinate immigration, customs, and border protection in the interest of national security.
Mamdanis broadside against ICE comes as a growing number of Democrats, from hard-left activists to establishment and self-styled moderates, rush to condemn federal immigration enforcement following the fatal shootings of Pretti and Renee Good.
For conservatives who view border control as a non-negotiable duty of the federal government, the spectacle of elected officials attacking the very agencies tasked with upholding immigration law raises a deeper question: whether the Democratic Partys loudest voices are more interested in dismantling enforcement than in fixing any genuine abuses, even as the country grapples with a historic border crisis.
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