The recent calls to defund ICE are unhelpful, useless, and distracting. ICE is not going to be defunded, nor should it be. Demands to do so play into the dirty hands of Trump, Noem, and Bondi. ICE is a legitimate law enforcement agency that is being grievously misused.
In 2024, a bipartisan immigration reform bill was set to pass Congress, but then-candidate Trump used his malign influence to derail it. Why?
Because he didn’t want progress on the immigration issue, but rather he sought to weaponize the topic as a campaign plank.
Now that he’s in office, he’s militarized ICE — not to sensibly and professionally arrest illegals, but to spread fear and intimidation. If ICE was truly enforcing the law, an average citizen wouldn’t even notice them.
In a civil, democratic society, any law must either be enforced or changed. In the case of immigration, illegals – by definition – should be arrested and deported; that is the legitimate mission of ICE, and it was being done under the Biden administration, too.
Certainly, protest the current misuse of ICE, but don’t invite mockery and waste credibility on the chimera of “defunding.” Recall that in the wake of the George Floyd murder, the Black Lives Matter movement was damaged by the ill-advised and useless calls to defund the police.
Peter M. Leschak
Side Lake