Rep. Scholten merely wants ICE to act the way they did under Obama and Biden, which arrested, detained and deported millions of immigrants

In her most recent “Straight Talk with Scholten”, the 3rd Congressional District Representative says she will not vote for another “penny for ICE funding until we have reforms.”

Before we get to the reforms that Rep. Scholten is calling for, she also said near the end of her weekly video – these reforms are already what the American public are asking for. Actually, what many Americans are calling for is to ABOLISH ICE. All across the country, especially since ICE murdered several people in Minneapolis, there is a growing call for ICE to be abolished, especially from immigrant-led groups like Mijente, United We Dream Network and Movimiento Cosecha, Other groups calling for the abolition of ICE are: ACLU, American Friends Service Committee, NAACP, Amnesty International, Detention Watch Network and CASA.

Here are the so-called reforms that Democrats are calling for:

• Requiring a judicial warrant to enter private property (as the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment already requires) – this sounds nice, but ICE tactics have been to wait til people they are after leave their house/apartment and then apprehend them and send them to a detention center.
• Verification of non-citizenship before detention and banning racial profiling and profiling based on job, language, and accent – again, this sounds nice, but immigrants from the global south have been racially profiled ever since the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. US immigration practices is rooted in racial profiling and simply verifying non-citizenship will not stop ICE from racial profiling.
• Prohibiting immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and requiring them to wear ID and body-worn cameras – this is all about optics and does nothing to stop ICE from terrorizing immigrants. Making ICE have badges and not covering their faces makes white people feel better, but will do nothing to prevent ICE from arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants.
• Prohibiting arrests at hospitals, schools, daycares, churches, polling places, and courts – a nice sentiment, but why limit ICE from arresting immigrants at just these locations? Terrorizing immigrants at their homes, their workplaces or when they are out shopping and going to the pharmacy are equally cruel. Again, this demand is about optics and makes white people feel better about ICE .
• Allowing states to investigate potential crimes committed by DHS and to sue DHS over detention conditions, and requiring state coordination for large-scale operations – This isn’t a bad idea, but how will this be enforced? Also, we know that local police are cooperative with ICE all around the country, so will people/communities be able to sue local police departments for assisting ICE in their terrorizing of immigrants?
• Safeguards including immediate access to attorneys for detainees, allowing states to sue DHS for violations, and unlimited congressional access to ICE facilities – also not a bad idea, but why didn’t Democrats demand this during the Biden and Obama Administrations? Immigrant detainees were being mistreated and many of them died under those administrations as well.
• Prohibit tracking and databases of individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment – Again, these activities have happened under Democratic Administrations, plus government surveillance of people in the US has been happening for a very long time regardless of who sits in the White House.
• Codification and enforcement of a use of force policy – Use of force policies by ICE and local law enforcement always protects the cops. This is why groups like Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE use the phrase – ICE and Cops go hand in hand. The carceral state has always used the threat of force to manage populations, especially BIPOC populations, so simply codifying use of force policies will provide even greater legal protections for ICE and local cops.

What Rep. Scholten and the Democratic Party want is for ICE to operate the way it did during the Obama and Biden Administration’s, which was to arrest, detain and deport immigrants by the millions. The Democrats don’t have a problem with ICE, they simply don’t like how the Trump Administration uses ICE. Do you actually think for a second that undocumented immigrants and their families that have been terrorized by ICE since 2003 when that agency was created want to reform ICE or abolish ICE?