The Problem Is Bigger Than ICE

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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was only formally created in 2003. But as author Jessica Pishko explains, the U.S. government has for decades had officials who enforce immigration law. In the latest edition of Right Now, Pishko, author of a 2024 book on sheriffs, discusses how ICE has evolved from its early days up to the present. She details how Trump is deploying ICE agents in an even more aggressive way than in his first term. She also says that many of the worst abuses in Minneapolis and other cities are being committed by Customs and Border Protection, whose officers are even more aggressive than ICE and have even less training in day-to-day policing.

One of the main issues today, Pishko argues, is not that ICE or CBP exist but that Trump is using them as a permanent national police force. The most effective reform, according to Pishko, would be to end mass detentions and other draconian immigration enforcement policies, so that there would be no need for a massive immigration law enforcement apparatus. In the short term, we should try to roll back funding for ICE and CBP and quickly fire officers who are behaving improperly.