The former actress turned left-wing New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon launched a Change.org petition Monday calling for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
“ICE has strayed too far from its mission and is causing unreasonable harm. We must dissolve it as an agency,” Nixon’s petition states.
The petition also called out President Trump for implementing his “zero-tolerance policy” against illegal immigration and separating migrant children from their parents after they are apprehended at the border. Trump signed an executive order in June ending the practice of separating families when they are apprehended at the border.
The left-wing candidate also advocated in the petition for a reinvention of ICE into a government agency that advocates for open borders.
“We need an immigration system which facilitates asylum processes, prioritizes keeping families together and includes a pathway to citizenship,” Nixon wrote in her petition, adding that the federal government should not be imprisoning or deporting people who cross the border into the United States illegally.
Since its launch Monday, the petition has already gained thousands of signatures. As of Monday afternoon, more than 15,000 people have signed Nixon’s petition.
Nixon has publicly voiced her disdain for the federal immigration agency in recent weeks. On Friday, she tweeted that ICE was akin to a “terrorist organization.”
The left-wing candidate, who is trailing Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the polls by at least 35 points, also called ICE a “terrorist organization” led by Donald Trump during a June speech at St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist Church in New York.
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