ICE: Rotten to the Core - The Case for Complete Abolition

Posted by justin on June 12, 2025 - Last modified on June 12, 2025

America is erupting. From Los Angeles, now under curfew with thousands of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines patrolling its streets, to the heart of Texas, the avenues of New York, the highways of Chicago, and countless other cities, a nation is in turmoil. The spark? The brutal, relentless raids of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency whose very existence has become a festering wound on the American conscience. As U.S. troops in Los Angeles are now chillingly authorized to detain civilians to support ICE's terror campaign, and with nationwide "No Kings" anti-Trump demonstrations planned for this Saturday, it is clearer than ever: this crisis is not an aberration. It is the inevitable, horrifying consequence of an agency that is fundamentally, irrevocably rotten to the core. Reform is a fantasy. Complete abolition is the only moral and just path forward.

The current inferno was ignited by ICE raids in Los Angeles, deliberately targeting areas with prominent Latino populations like Westlake and Paramount. This is part of President Trump's escalated, terroristic crackdown, with ICE now reportedly arresting 2,000 people per day – a horrifying surge from the daily average of 311 in fiscal year 2024 – and conducting massive worksite raids, like the recent one in Omaha, Nebraska. The people fought back. Los Angeles became the epicenter, with mass arrests, clashes, and a federal building besieged. But the fire of resistance has spread like wildfire. In Texas, Governor Abbott deployed the National Guard in San Antonio, even as Austin, Dallas, and Houston saw furious protests and violent confrontations. Thousands have marched in New York City, facing arrests. California is a battleground beyond LA, with San Francisco witnessing over 150 arrests near an ICE office, and unrest in Oakland and Santa Ana, where even a Congresswoman declared the federal government was the cause of the problems. Chicago's highways have been shut down by thousands of protesters, some met with violence. Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston, Seattle – the list of cities rising up grows daily.

This national uprising has been met with an iron fist. Trump's deployment of 4,000 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, against the explicit objections of California's Governor and Mayor, is a chilling move towards authoritarianism. These troops, now authorized to detain civilians until police can make arrests, are not peacekeepers; they are enforcers for ICE's reign of terror, with Marines set to directly protect ICE agents during raids. ICE itself has proudly posted photos of National Guard troops, weapons in hand, standing over handcuffed migrants. This deployment has rightly sparked a constitutional crisis, with California suing the federal government, citing the Posse Comitatus Act that generally forbids military involvement in civilian law enforcement. Yet, the Trump administration brazenly claims the president has discretion if there's a "rebellion". The White House Press Secretary’s chilling declaration that "left-wing riots will not deter" Trump's mass deportation campaign says it all: this is a war on immigrant communities, and by extension, a war on American dissent.

But the horrors unfolding on our streets are merely the visible symptoms of a disease that has been poisoning our nation for two decades. ICE is rotten to its core, and its evils are manifold:

A System Built on Inhumane Detention: ICE operates the largest immigration detention apparatus in the world, a network of over 389 acknowledged and unacknowledged facilities – including private prisons, local jails, and even hotels and military bases – where an average of 37,000 souls are caged daily, and over 260,000 were churned through in the last year alone. The conditions are subhuman. Twenty-three people have died in ICE custody since the start of the Biden administration, twelve in the last year alone, with a staggering 95% of deaths between 2017 and 2021 deemed likely preventable with adequate medical care. Survivors report starvation, physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, and medical neglect so profound it leads to death. Migrants have been held in converted shipping containers in Djibouti under baking heat, exposed to smoke from nearby burn pits, and denied necessary medication. The punitive use of solitary confinement has skyrocketed by 50% for "vulnerable populations" since March 2023, with average durations more than doubling. This empire of suffering is a goldmine for private prison corporations. As of July 2023, a sickening 90% of people in ICE custody were held in for-profit facilities. Companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic rake in billions – 43% of GEO Group's 2022 revenue and 30% of CoreCivic's came directly from ICE contracts. Their stocks soar with anti-immigrant rhetoric, and they pour millions into lobbying to ensure the pipeline of human misery, and their profits, never runs dry. The testimonies of survivors paint a harrowing picture: "They call it detention in the U.S., but it is a jail," one recounted, describing being stripped and thrown into maximum security for a mere immigration violation. Another spoke of the psychological torment: "Detention destroyed my life, I lost any hope". This is not justice; it is torture for profit.

The Unforgivable Sin of Family Separation: The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, which ripped over 6,000 children from their parents' arms between April and August 2018 alone, was an act of calculated cruelty that shocked the world. But the horror didn't start or end there. Separations began under a "pilot program" in 2017, and continued even after court orders, with hundreds more families torn apart. Parents were coerced and deceived into deportation without their children, making reunification a nightmare. This barbarity echoes the darkest chapters of American history – the separation of enslaved families, the theft of Native American children – a state-sanctioned violence ICE has chillingly revived.

An Assault on Due Process and Civil Rights: ICE operates with the thuggish impunity of a rogue agency. Its agents conduct warrantless searches, using administrative "warrants" signed by fellow ICE officers, not judges, to try and bully their way into homes. They make arrests without probable cause and have been caught fabricating evidence. They stalk courthouses, ambushing people appearing for hearings – people following the rules – and funneling them into expedited removal, a fast-track deportation system stripping them of their right to a fair hearing. A staggering 62% of those in immigration court have no lawyer to defend them, and 60% are subject to mandatory detention without even a bond hearing. Racial profiling is rampant, particularly through programs like 287(g), which disproportionately target Latino and Black communities. Confidential information, like DMV records, is weaponized for "fishing expeditions".

Toxic Partnerships That Corrupt Local Law Enforcement: Programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities are insidious, turning local police into extensions of ICE's deportation machine. The 287(g) program, which has seen a record number of agreements signed under Trump, deputizes local officers to interrogate and detain people for deportation. Despite government watchdog warnings about inadequate training and oversight, and documented cases of racial profiling and constitutional violations in places like Maricopa County, Arizona, and Alamance County, North Carolina, the program expands. Secure Communities, while claiming to target serious criminals, overwhelmingly swept up those with minor or no offenses, had no observable effect on crime rates, and actually increased violent victimization risk for Latinos. These programs don't create safety; they shatter community trust, making everyone less safe as immigrant communities become terrified to report crimes or cooperate with police.

An Agency Devoid of Accountability: ICE operates in a black hole of accountability. Its inspections of detention facilities are a sham – pre-announced and rarely finding fault despite overwhelming evidence of abuse. The agency is unresponsive to Congressional oversight. It even contracts with spyware companies like Israel's Paragon, giving an agency already notorious for abuse new tools for surveillance and harassment, particularly against border communities, journalists, lawyers, and activists.

The litany of ICE's evils is long and sickening. This is not an agency with a few bad apples; it is a poisoned tree, rotten from its roots to its highest branches. ICE is doing precisely what it was built to do: criminalize immigrants, separate families, and terrorize communities, all while deflecting blame for societal ills onto the vulnerable. Reform is not an option. You cannot reform an agency whose very purpose is inhumane.

The "Abolish ICE" movement, which has existed almost since ICE's inception, is not a radical fringe idea; it is a moral necessity. It is a call rooted in the belief in inherent human dignity, the right to freedom of movement, and the understanding that some institutions are so fundamentally unjust they must be dismantled, not tweaked. Like the abolitionists who fought against slavery, we must demand immediate, unconditional abolition, not gradual reform. We must envision and build an immigration system that prioritizes human rights, community-based solutions, and addresses the root causes of migration, rather than one based on militarized enforcement and cruelty.

The scenes of chaos and resistance unfolding across America are a direct indictment of ICE's continued existence. An agency that requires military force against its own nation's residents to carry out its agenda has no legitimate place in a democratic society. ICE is an engine of suffering, a stain on our nation's conscience, fueling division, violence, and now, domestic military engagement against our own people.

The time for complacency is over. The time for half-measures has passed. Join the nationwide movement, like the "No Kings" protests planned for this Saturday. Demand that your elected officials take a stand against this tyranny. Work towards building a just, humane, and welcoming immigration system that reflects our highest ideals, not our darkest impulses.

Tear down this agency of cruelty. Abolish ICE. Reclaim our nation's soul.


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