New ICE commercials airing in Michigan are based on a false narrative about what ICE does

There is a series of new ICE commercials running in several states over the past few weeks. The ads are currently running in Michigan, North Carolina, and Georgia. These ICE commercials eve ran during last Sunday’s Super Bowl game. You can watch two of the ICE commercials here.

Here is the narrative from one of the ads:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement have removed thousands of criminal, illegal aliens from the US. They entered the United State illegally and committed crime against our mothers, children, and friends. Every day Immigration and Customs Enforcement take them off our streets. Every removal makes us safer and America stronger. This is what ICE does. This is Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

There is a great deal with these ICE commercials that are deeply problematic, however, the main issue is that that these commercials are presenting lies.

The first lie is that immigrants entered the US illegally. Undocumented immigrants who entered the US without papers did nothing illegal. Being in the US without papers is a civil infraction, but not a crime.

The second lie is that ICE is “removing” immigrants who commit violent crimes. There is no definitive consensus on how many undocumented immigrants have committed violent crimes, like the kind that are listed in the ICE commercial – murder, child predator, drug trafficker, kidnapping, child pornography, rape and child molestation. David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, (which has been funded by the Koch brothers, so not exactly a leftist think tank) analyzed nonpublic data from ICE leaked to Cato, and he found that among those with criminal convictions detained by ICE, 8% were convicted of violent or property crimes (about 5% were violent criminal convictions). “And that includes very minor assaults. I mean, not like rape and murder,” Bier said in a radio interview with KPFA on Jan. 22. “These are someone had an altercation at a bar or things like that, not serious violent criminals who committed murder and rape.” Thus, only 5 percent had a violent criminal conviction.

The third lie is that ICE arrests are making “us safer and America stronger.” The reality is that when ICE arrests people they are causing harm directly to immigrant families, both economic hardship since the majority of those taken were the primary income earners, along with the trauma that families experience when someone is taken. This harm doesn’t make people and communities safer, instead it harms us as well. ICE is arresting people who are our neighbors, co-workers, friends, ad people we attend religious services with.

Lastly, it is important to note that the entity paying for these ICE commercials is America Sovereignty. American Sovereignty lists some of its priorities as border security, protecting taxpayers and public safety, according to its website. The website doesn’t provide further details about who the group comprises, where its funding comes from, nor in what ways it works toward its mission.

According to a recent Mother Jones article:

American Sovereignty has a bare-bones website created in January, where you can sign up for a mailing list and read its privacy policy. But, otherwise, basically nothing is known.

We couldn’t find any publicly available corporate registration documents, and we got no response today when we reached out to the email address on the website to ask about the background of the group. It’s been the same for other news outlets: After American Sovereignty put up a pro-ICE billboard in San Francisco in the run-up to the Super Bowl, multiple journalists reached out to the group but didn’t get a response.

Regardless of the fact that we know very little about who is behind these pro-ICE commercials, we do know that they are based on lies and they are seeking to change public opinion about Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE was created in 2003, yet the most recent polling shows at least half the country not only opposes ICE, but wants the federal agency to be abolished. Abolishing ICE is exactly was Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are demanding.