Kirsten Gillibrand: If Dems Win Midterms, 'First Thing We Should Do' Is Abolish ICE

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) says abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — and thus all immigration enforcement — should be the “first thing” Democrats do if they win the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.

During a panel discussion in New York City, New York on Monday, Gillibrand said that if Democrats win the House and Senate, their first action should be to abolish ICE, which would end all immigration enforcement in the United States.

“So when we flip the House and flip the Senate, I the first thing we should do is deal with the children who are being separated from their families at the border,” Gillibrand said.

“We should… I think we should get rid of ICE,” Gillibrand continued. “We should separate out the two missions. And do the anti-terrorism mission, the national security mission. And then on the other side, make sure you’re doing… looking at immigration as a humanitarian issue. These are civil issues, these are families.”

As Breitbart News reported, abolishing ICE would have set free more than 1.4 million criminal illegal aliens over the last half decade who were in federal custody. A total of more than 1.6 million illegal aliens would have been released into American communities in the last five years had ICE been abolished.

Gillibrand’s commitment to abolishing all immigration enforcement comes after socialist Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who beat out Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) in the Democratic primary in the 14th District — has thrust her “abolish ICE” campaign into the Democrat mainstream.

Last week, Ocasio-Cortez called on left-wing activists to “occupy every airport, we need to occupy every border, we need to occupy every ICE office” until President Trump’s popular “zero tolerance” policy at the U.S.-Mexico border is ended.

Though Democrats have made abolishing all immigration enforcement through an abolishment of ICE their unofficial platform ahead of the midterm elections, such a move is not only unpopular with the vast majority of Americans, Republicans, and swing voters but is also wildly unpopular with Democrat voters.

In the latest Harvard/Harris Poll, 3-in-4 swing voters said they opposed the Democrats’ plan to end all immigration enforcement across the U.S. Nearly 70 percent of Americans said they too oppose abolishing ICE.

Likewise, nearly 60 percent of Democrats said they do not want ICE to be disbanded.

Most recent polling finds that a majority of white, black, and Hispanic Americans support Trump’s agenda of increased immigration enforcement with stricter measures. The latest Harvard/Harris Poll found that 77 percent of white voters, 53 percent of black voters, and 51 percent of Hispanic voters said they believe the U.S. needs stricter immigration laws.