A lot of people are chanting "Abolish ICE!" and while I agree with the sentiment, I think we need to understand what that would actually entail.
A strong narrative in this moment is that George W. Bush created ICE. People seem to think that he set up ICE without precedent, just conjured the organization out of the ether to harass immigrants. That is not what happened.
Before Immigration and Customs Enforcement, we had Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS). They did the same kinds of things ICE was doing until a year ago: Setting up workplace raids, rounding up illegal immigrants, trying them for breaking our immigration laws, and deporting the ones found guilty back to their home country.
INS also did not form out of the ether. It was a governmental organization tasked with enforcing immigration laws, laws which have not changed substantially since Reagan granted amnesty in the early 1980s. Similarly, ICE exists, not because of the whim of a given president, but because there are laws to enforce.
So abolishing ICE without changing the immigration laws will accomplish almost nothing. We will replace a corrupt enforcement agency with a (hopefully) not corrupt agency, but the legal mandates of the organization will remain the same.
I need people to start chanting immigration reform alongside abolish ICE.
What kind of reform should we push for?
Enshrine into law that entering the country without prior explicit permission is not a crime. (This is currently partially true; we need it to be absolutely true.)
Reduce the number of visa categories and simplify the legal framework for who is allowed to do what while in the US.
Provide a path to citizenship for people who have been living and working here for years.
Once again, I offer my Super Simple Immigration System:
Have two simple visa categories: Visitors, and Permanent Residents.
Screen Visitors for basic things and change a nominal entry fee to cover administrative costs.
Allow Visitors to rent an apartment or house, obtain a driver's license, get a job. There's no good reason to restrict activities based on visa status.
Visitors do not qualify for government assistance programs, cannot join the military, cannot serve on juries, cannot vote.
Give the opportunity to upgrade to Permanent Resident after a person has lived and worked here for 6+ months.
Permanent Residents can qualify for government assistance and can join the military. They cannot serve on juries and cannot vote.
Allow application for Citizenship after however many years of Permanent Residence. I think our current setup is 5 years for most visa holders. That would be fine.
Citizens can serve on juries and vote.
People who are already here can apply for a Visitor Visa. No need to leave and return.
IT'S SO EASY. So why are we clinging to the current convoluted, bullshit immigration system that we have? A combination of racism, xenophobia, economic paranoia, and the desire of big businesses to have an easily exploitable class of workers to draw from. Every single time immigration reform has been on the table in the last 30 years, it has gone absolutely nowhere. And frankly, the pro-immigration people were part of the fucking problem. There was a potential agreement to streamline a whole lot of these things, and instead of taking the win, these people dug their fucking heels in because the plan didn't do anything for people already here. IT'S INFURIATING. It is, actually, ok to achieve incremental progress. To say yes to a proposal that helps a whole fuckton of people, and then to KEEP PUSHING to help even more people. If we can't get past our purity politics bullshit, our country is going to disintegrate into ash around our ears.
Anyways. Please add, "Immigration Reform Today" alongside your calls to "Abolish ICE." (If someone has a snazzier slogan, I'm all ears.)
