ICE, also known as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is tasked with protecting America’s national security under the Department of Homeland Security. According to its website, ICE is made up of “hardworking men and women” who strive to fulfill President Donald Trump’s promise to “Make America Safe Again by removing violent criminal illegal aliens.” While this idea may be easy to romanticize on paper, the Trump administration has used ICE to terrorize America by targeting and profiling people of color, conducting warrantless entries and raids while ignoring due process, holding those arrested in inhumane detention centers, and injuring and killing the nation’s citizens. The heinous actions of ICE are indefensible, and the agency must be abolished, not reformed.

ICE was created in 2003 out of the old United States Immigration and Naturalization Service as a direct result of nativism and concerns of national security caused by 9/11. The Trump administration cannot be trusted to reform an agency that was created under such ideals after it has spent countless years fearmongering by disrespecting and dehumanizing immigrants. It is essential that the momentum of recent protests and public involvement is utilized through voting, immigrant support, pressuring officials and advocacy to make the abolition happen.

Since federal immigration agents in Minnesota killed U.S. citizens Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti in January, there has been widespread public outcry for justice and government action. “ICE Out” protests erupted across the nation in several states including California, with Sacramento drawing major crowds in the “ICE Out for Good” protest and the Sacramento City United School District student walkout. Not to mention the several anti-Trump “No Kings” protests that have been propelled by overflowing crowds demanding that ICE leaves cities across America.

ICE also saw a rise in disapproval from Trump’s own party, with polls conducted by CNN and The New York Times showing spikes in Republican voters supporting abolishing the agency.

In a Feb. 4 interview with NBC News, Trump responded to the outrage by saying he “learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch.”

The president continued downplaying the severity of ICE’s crimes, even after replacing former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem with former Senator Markwayne Mullin on March 5.

Noem had been catching heat for defending ICE shootings, calling Good and Pretti domestic terrorists without evidence, and for running a $220 million ad campaign that encouraged immigrants to self-deport. Despite this, Noem was not truly let go from the administration, only moved to a position as the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas. In a Truth Social post announcing her move, Trump said Noem “has served us well and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!).” In a social media post on X, Noem thanked the president and said, “We have made historic accomplishments at the Department of Homeland Security.”

Somehow still receiving praise and a position in the administration from the President, Noem’s removal from DHS is not enough to make up for the lives lost and the defended acts of government terrorism. While ICE under Mullin has drawn less attention by working under quieter tactics, the agency is still operating with the same goal of running on Trump’s mission to “deport illegal alien criminals and protect the homeland.”

Regardless of who runs ICE, the nefarious promise of the “largest deportation” is immoral. Its success with voters can be traced back to years of overt racism, alienation and anti-immigrant rhetoric from the president.

“The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans. They’re animals,” Trump said during his 2024 presidential campaign.

While Trump’s ideas and ICE detention centers are often compared to those of Nazis and historical fascism overseas, they also stem from historical discrimination in America. America’s history shows constant fear of immigrants and people of color “stealing” jobs from white people, resulting in xenophobic and racist laws, with one example being the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Trump has taken it upon himself to repeat history by playing up these same fears countless times in both his 2015 and 2024 campaigns.

“They’re coming in from China—31, 32,000 over the last few months—and they’re all military age and they are mostly men. And it sounds to me like they are trying to build a little army in our country? Is that what they’re trying to do?” Trump said during his 2024 campaign.

Trump has also baselessly said immigrants are eating cats, dogs and pets, adding that “it’s a shame,” Syrian refugees have to go back because “we cannot take a chance” and caravans of migrants are marching towards our southern border. Trump has also compared immigrants to the fictional serial killer and cannibal, Hannibal Lecter.

“They’re rough people, in many cases from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums. You know, insane asylums, that’s ‘Silence of the Lambs’ stuff… Hannibal Lecter, anybody know Hannibal Lecter?” Trump said on March 4, 2024.

Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” falls under the same category of reused fascist strategies. The “again” is strategically vague, giving no actual answer as to when America was perfect. Although, Trump and his administration have praised historical time periods to give context to what “again” could mean.

In an interview with The New York Times published on March 26, 2016, Trump praised the “late ‘40s and ‘50s,” stating America was respected and not pushed around, having just won a war. After Trump’s first presidential victory that same year, Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist, said in a Hollywood Reporter interview that Trump’s presidency will be “as exciting as the 1930s.” These glorified time periods were plagued with racism, segregation, hysteria and extreme poverty, with the 1930s being the era of the Great Depression.

Nonetheless, these faulty answers of “exciting” times in America do not diminish the power of MAGA. The messages of “taking back our country” by bringing back jobs and healthcare “stolen” by immigrants evidently resonated with voters. Amplified by years of dehumanizing and alienating immigrants, Trump worked to harness a feeling of nostalgia that aligned with authoritarianism, hierarchies and struggle, creating a “mythic past.” In doing so, the president drew the line between those who are “deserving” and “undeserving.”

In his book “How Fascism Works, The Politics of Us and Them,” author and philosopher Jason Stanley explains that when positions of power, usually reserved for white men, are attained by minorities, or when public goods like democracy and healthcare are shared, it’s “perceived as corruption.”

“Fascist politicians know that their supporters will turn a blind eye to their own, true corruption since in their own case it is just a matter of members of the chosen nation taking what’s rightfully theirs,” Stanley writes, adding that masking corruption under the guise of anticorruption is “a hallmark strategy in fascist propaganda.”

It is no surprise that such an administration would use ICE to fulfill these fascist promises of restoring America. From early on, studies have shown that ICE affects the health of immigrants, including a 2009 study reporting ICE ignites high levels of stress due to deportation fear and concerns about not being able to furnish documentation required to apply for insurance and health care, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Stanley emphasizes that, in practice, ICE collaborates with conventional American criminal justice systems, but they end up working at “cross-purposes” with them because the fear instilled in immigrant communities leads to immigrants being less likely to report crime.

“The goal of ICE is not to make communities safer,” Stanley writes, “ICE’s mission is to reinforce a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them.”

Since its creation in 2003, ICE has only grown in both numbers and funding. ICE is now the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, with an $85 billion budget thanks to Trump, a stark increase from the less than $6 billion budget 10 years ago. Through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed in July of 2025, ICE has a “$75 billion supplement that it can take as long as four years to spend, along with its base budget of around $10 billion,” according to Bill Chappel, writer for NPR News. Offering hefty salaries that range from $51,632 to $85,277, ICE gives unqualified and untrained people unprecedented opportunity with their rapid-hiring process. Despite being such a rich agency, death rates of immigrants in custody are reaching record highs.

According to Sergio Martinez-Beltran, writer for NPR News, 29 people have died in ICE custody since Oct. 2025, the start of the government’s fiscal year. Taking into account the 14 people shot by federal immigration officers between September 2025 to February 2026, and the countless cases of officers aggressively attacking observers and protesters, it’s clear that this agency is too far gone. The harm it inflicts on communities, the lives it has taken and the outrageous amount of funding it receives are enough to call for its abolition.

Defending the law and protection of Americans cannot be preached by a president in the Epstein files who has been found guilty of 34 felony counts, or an agency that arrests migrants at mandatory court check-ins and ignores due process. Instead of ICE, America needs an immigration system driven by justice and humanity.

According to Sophia Lena Salmore, a writer for Oxford Human Rights Hub, abolishing ICE would not mean open borders or no immigration enforcement. Rather, it means “dismantling an agency that many see as structurally abusive and replacing it with a more humane, accountable system focused on civil—not criminal—immigration processes.”

The accomplishment of achieving the “American Dream” needs to be made possible. Immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees need to be given the support they need to establish themselves in America without the haunting immediate punishment of deportation and violence being strung over their heads. The map to citizenship should be clear, timely, cost-effective, and inclusive while ensuring immigrants have access to services and legal help.

The way to enact these changes by voting.

With midterms and the gubernatorial primary election coming up in California, it’s essential to carefully look at candidate funding and voting records, as well as their plans to either abolish or reform ICE.

To register to vote or check your voter status, visit the RegisterToVoteCA website. Students at American River College can also participate in California’s Secretary of State’s “Engage the Vote Tournament” until June 2.

For California voter guides, voting records, policy positions and more, visit CalMatters and VoteSee website.