A renewed debate over “Abolish ICE” is revisiting arguments that the agency’s interior-enforcement mission has enabled abuses and politicization. Supporters of eliminating ICE say immigration enforcement could be reassigned elsewhere, while opponents argue the slogan oversimplifies a complex set of functions and risks backlash.
The slogan “Abolish ICE” gained national attention during Donald Trump’s first term, particularly in 2018 amid outrage over the administration’s family-separation policy and broader immigration enforcement crackdown. The movement’s central proposal has been to eliminate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—created in 2003 after the Homeland Security Act of 2002—and to move its responsibilities to other agencies or restructure them in different ways.
One prominent figure often credited with popularizing the phrase online is Sean McElwee, a progressive strategist and a co-founder of Data for Progress, who helped spread the hashtag #AbolishICE, according to multiple accounts of the movement’s origins.
Several Democratic lawmakers flirted with abolition language in 2018 as family separations dominated headlines. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said in a televised interview that ICE should be scrapped and rebuilt—“get rid of it, start over, reimagine it”—framing the agency as failing to protect families.
The political impact of the slogan has remained contested. While some activists and commentators have compared “Abolish ICE” to later, similarly blunt calls such as “Defund the police,” it is difficult to establish a direct causal link between the two movements beyond overlapping organizing networks and a shared emphasis on structural change. What is clearer is that both slogans became flashpoints inside the Democratic Party, with many elected officials later distancing themselves from abolition-style messaging even as they endorsed narrower reforms.
ICE itself has not disappeared. The agency says it employs more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel and, as of recent years, has operated with an annual budget in the roughly single-digit billions. Separately, fact-checking of recent federal funding debates has found that proposals and new funding streams discussed since 2025 could make ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency, depending on how those funds are allocated year by year.
Critics of ICE argue that its interior-enforcement role, the expansion of detention, and the agency’s placement within the post-9/11 Department of Homeland Security have contributed to abuses and to the perception of politicized enforcement. Supporters of abolition contend that immigration enforcement could be handled more like an administrative function—reducing reliance on detention and aggressive street-level operations—and that investigative work could be reassigned or reorganized.
Opponents of abolition, including some commentators and immigration-policy advocates, argue that “Abolish ICE” is more slogan than governing plan, noting that ICE includes multiple components—such as Homeland Security Investigations—that target crimes beyond immigration status, and that any restructuring would require detailed legislation and clear operational alternatives.
As the debate continues, the most concrete proposals tend to focus on specific institutional changes: limiting detention capacity, increasing oversight and accountability, clarifying enforcement priorities, and separating or reorganizing ICE’s functions rather than eliminating the entire agency in name alone.
