ICE was created out of fear and retribution: ICE can be abolished by resistance and solidarity with immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003. In 2003, the Homeland Security Act separated ICE from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

The Homeland Security Act was overwhelmingly adopted by Congress in 2002, with the House passing it 295-132 and the Senate 90-9. Therefore, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security had bi-partisan support.

Thus the creation of ICE comes out of the US Government’s response to 9/11 and their so-called war on terrorism. ICE was created as a more militarized version of INS, allowing federal agents to use force to apprehend immigrants they deemed to be a threat to the county. The reality has been all along that ICE has primarily targeted undocumented immigrants and engaged in racial profiling in the process.

ICE funding has always been substantial, receiving $3.3 billion 2003 and expanding to $9 billion in 2024. This means that in every administration since it was created – Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden – each administration has endorsed ICE operations and each Congress since 2003 has voted to fund ICE.

In March of  2025, Congress voted to increase the ICE budget to $10 billion. Then there was the Beautiful Big Bill, which provided the largest increase to ICE making ICE the highest funding federal law enforcement agency in US history.

The so-called One Big Beautiful Act allocates more than $170 billion over four years for border and interior enforcement, with a stated goal of deporting 1 million immigrants each year. Of that $170 billion ICE will receive $75 billion over a four year period or an additional $18.7 billion per year.

The other entity that increased its budget from the Big Beautiful Bill was Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP operates along the US/Mexican and the US/Canadian borders. Remember, Michigan shares some of its borders with Canada, which is why there is CBP presence in this state.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative local jails play a major role in the apprehension of immigrants for ICE, especially in states, counties and cities that have not adopted policies that would prevent local cooperation with ICE. See graphic above.

From a recent report by the Prison Policy Initiative they write:

Despite overwhelming displays of power and intimidating rhetoric, the federal government nonetheless relies heavily on state and local collaboration to enact its mass deportation agenda. The Trump administration is therefore vulnerable to state and local policy action that goes beyond merely limiting sheriffs and police from deputizing officers to work as immigration agents. This weakness is evident in the data, which show significantly smaller jumps in arrest rates in states where advocates have most aggressively worked to reject collaboration, and much higher rates in states that have embraced it.

This is exactly why it is vitally important for people who live in Kent County to get behind the campaign that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding for the past year to adopt 6 sanctuary policies for the City of Grand Rapids and for Kent County.

The six sanctuary policies are:

• Policies restricting the ability of state and local police to make arrests for federal immigration violations, or to detain individuals on civil immigration warrants.
• Policies restricting the police or other county workers from asking about immigration status.
• Policies prohibiting “287(g)” agreements through which ICE deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.
• Policies that prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention.
• Policies preventing immigration detention centers from being established in Kent County, which would include the use of the Kent County Jail as a detention facility for ICE.
• A policy that will not allow the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to share Flock camera images or any other information gathered by county staff with ICE or any other law enforcement agency seeking to arrest, detain and deport immigrants.

Historically there has been bipartisan support for ICE and there has never been an elected member of Congress who has called for the defunding and abolition of ICE. We cannot vote our way out of this mess, but we can resist ICE at the local level.

This is why it is critical that if people are really pissed off at ICE, then they should get involved in the daily resistance work that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE do, plus join the campaigns to pressure Kent County and the City of Grand Rapids to adopt the six sanctuary policies listed above. This is exactly how social change has happened throughout the centuries…..from the ground up.