Tag: Slogan

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee challenging Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas this fall, says that his fellow Democrats’ call to abolish ICE is just a “slogan or a bumper sticker” that won’t accomplish anything. “It is the practices, it is the way in which we are treating our fellow human beings that needs to be changed, and that won’t come with a slogan or a bumper sticker or the abolition of one department.” O’Rourke, who represents the El Paso area and has visited detention sites several times, noted that abolishing ICE won’t solve the still-pressing issue of family reunification after minors were separated from their parents at illegal border crossings. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement “can’t connect child with family once that child is in their custody,” he said – not ICE. “It's time for the institution of Congress to stand up and do its job.” In the meantime, O’Rourke predicts that the Trump administration will not make the Thursday deadline to reunite families separated at the border. “This country was in no way prepared for the industrial scale of family separation.” “This is one of the most inhumane cruel things I've ever seen this country do and it was the decision of the president,” he continued. He also emphasized the difference between impeachment and conviction, which only the Senate would vote on and would result in removing a president from office. I would liken it to an indictment,” he explained. Until then, he says: “I don’t think that [impeachment] is possible right now.” The Democratic lawmaker will face Cruz, R-Texas, in the general election, in a race that has drawn the attention of national Democratic activists and donors. When asked if he would commit to voting for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as Democratic leader if he is elected, O’Rourke said “no.” “I would have to...listen to those who are vying for that position and then make the best-informed decision. In fact, this is the first time I've been asked the question.” Every Wednesday, ABC Radio and I-tunes brings you the Powerhouse Politics Podcast which includes headliner interviews and in-depth looks at the people and events shaping U.S. politics.

The president was referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security that bears the responsibility of carrying out his hardline immigration agenda. The list of those calling for Ice to be abolished nonetheless includes at least some prominent Democrats, such as Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both regarded as potential contenders for the 2020 presidential race. A recent poll, conducted before the controversy over Trump’s family separation policy, found Democrats with a 14-point advantage over Republicans on each party’s handling of immigration. The US Customs and Border Protection, meanwhile, was tasked with enforcement along the US borders. But the Obama administration, immigration advocates said, shifted its focus in later years by having Ice concentrate on those who committed serious felonies or were considered security risks. The overall arrests in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, were 30% higher than the previous year. The “Abolish Ice” slogan among some progressives, Fitzgerald said, probably has less to do with the agency itself than “a general cry of protest against Trump’s draconian immigration policies”. Democrats in Washington, he pointed out, have largely adopted the position that Ice should be reformed rather than eliminated in its entirety. The agents wrote that the association of Ice with the Trump administration’s controversial detention and deportation policies had made it difficult for its investigative division to pursue threats to national security, organized crime, and drug and human trafficking. “The reality is, at the end of the day, we need to have an agency that enforces immigration law and the border.” “But we need an agency that operates with humanity, with compassion … It’s not about abolish Ice so much as it is about abolish the abuses, abolish the treatment of families like they’re something less than human.”