Tim Walz on ‘Abolish ICE’ Movement: ‘I Strongly Support … Majorly Reforming’ Federal Immigration Enforcement

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), chosen as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, once said he “strongly” backed “majorly reforming” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which are tasked with arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal aliens.

In 2018, Democrats embraced the “Abolish ICE” movement that sought to eliminate the federal agency and ultimately halt arrests and deportations of illegal aliens. Legislation at the time, proposed by a handful of House Democrats, suggested support for ridding ICE of its duties around enforcing federal immigration law.

Walz, a congressman representing Minnesota then, never publicly disavowed the Abolish ICE movement; instead, he told the MinnPost in July 2018 that he wanted to see DHS and ICE overhauled.

The MinnPost reported:

First District DFL Rep. Tim Walz, who is running for governor, said he supported an independent investigation into the actions of the Trump administration on immigration, but did not favor abolishing ICE. “As far as DHS and ICE are concerned, I strongly support holding the administration accountable as well as majorly reforming these institutions to ensure they uphold our sacred values of freedom and democracy,” he said in a statement. [Emphasis added]

Less than two weeks after Walz said he wanted major changes at DHS and ICE relating to federal immigration enforcement, he did not vote on a House resolution opposing the Abolish ICE movement.

That resolution, which Walz did not vote on, stated:

Whereas abolishing United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would mean open borders because it would eliminate the main agency responsible for removing people who enter or remain in our country illegally; [Emphasis added]

…

Whereas abolishing ICE would allow dangerous criminal aliens, including violent and ruthless members of the MS–13 gang, to remain in American communities; [Emphasis added]

Walz’s statement and non-action to oppose the Abolish ICE movement is similar to that of Harris. In June 2018, Harris told MSNBC she wanted to see DHS and ICE “critically” reexamined.

“I think there’s no question that we’ve got to critically reexamine ICE and its role and the way that it is being administered and the work it is doing, and we need to probably think about starting from scratch, because there’s a lot that is wrong with the way that it is conducting itself, and we need to deal with that,” Harris said, stating that ICE’s “mission is very much in question and has to be reexamined.”

Harris and Walz’s suggested goals of redirecting DHS and ICE away from enforcing federal immigration law have been at least partially carried out by President Joe Biden’s administration, the agency’s data shows.

ICE data collected by the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) shows that while former President Donald Trump oversaw nearly a million illegal aliens deported from the U.S. interior, Biden and Harris’s DHS has slashed those deportations by more than half.

“A vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is a vote to abolish ICE and dismantle enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws,” NICE President RJ Hauman told Breitbart News. “Detaining and deporting illegal aliens will soon be obsolete.”

Biden and Harris’s DHS has nearly tripled ICE’s so-called “non-detained docket.” Those migrants on ICE’s non-detained docket are known to the agency but are allowed to live throughout the U.S. while awaiting their deportation hearings.

ICE’s non-detained docket is an important tool for left-wing activists and Democrats, as the docket is used to ensure that the overwhelming majority of migrants arriving at the southern border are not placed into detention or monitored through the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP).

By the end of the year, more than eight million migrants are expected to be on ICE’s non-detained docket, living freely across the U.S., the vast majority of whom are not monitored.

Meanwhile, only about 38,000 migrants are in ICE detention as of last month.

“The American people won’t be fooled by Kamala’s silence or the media billing Walz as some moderate rust belt Democrat fighting for the little guy,” Hauman said. “He has spent his years in office marching in lockstep with open borders extremists, only to double down when becoming governor of Minnesota.”

As governor of Minnesota, Walz has hoped to attract illegal aliens to the state. Currently, Walz is backing a plan to make Minnesota a sanctuary state for criminal illegal aliens after having already signed legislation that extended taxpayer-funded Medicaid to illegal aliens, ensured illegal aliens are eligible for in-state college tuition, and rewarded illegal aliens with driver’s licenses.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.