More than 100 liberal Democrats including card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America members sent a letter to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to push the party leaders to sign onto the “Abolish ICE” movement.
The Monday letter from far left state lawmakers, City Council members and other local pols demanded that the Senate and House minority leaders to “publicly” support ending Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Leverage your positions to defund and dismantle this rogue federal agency,” said the letter, which was obtained by City and State and was signed by DSA members state Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), Assemblymember Diana Moreno (D-Queens) and City Councilmember Shahana Hanif.
“We applaud recent efforts by congressional Democrats to block funding to Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol, but we must go further. We can no longer ignore the threat that ICE, which as only existed since 2002, poses to our communities and to our democracy,” they added.
The DSA crew said the renewed effort to do away with federal immigration enforcement was a reaction to two more deaths of individuals at the hands of ICE officers in recent weeks.
Jeffries has stopped short of embracing the “Abolish ICE” slogan himself, but has backed other anti-ICE measures like requiring them to remove masks in Congress.
He also boasted to TikTokker Aaron Parnas last week about shutting down the government over refusing to fund immigration enforcement measures.
“ICE has to be dramatically reformed. Immigration enforcement in this country should be fair, just, and humane. ICE is currently out of control. And perhaps most importantly, we’re not giving a dime to Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine,” Jeffries said.
Schumer spokesperson James Martin also touted the shutdown but stopped short of saying that ICE should be stripped down to the studs.
“Senator Schumer led the longest shutdown in history to stop ICE’s abuses, and that fight is not over,” a the spokesperson said in a statement. “Democrats will not let up until we stop the killings, cruelty, and end the impunity.”
