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I think it would need public disavowals not only of the use of violence, but all threatening and dehumanizing language towards law enforcement officers. I would like a prominent Democratic leader to say something like, "We do not agree with the enforcement policy being executed by the administration, and are working to change that policy. But ICE agents are normal, decent people, federal employees doing an important and difficult job. You are not required to assist them, but please do not interfere with their duties."
Something like that? https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/1943443522058883549
Yes! I wish he had more influence on his party.
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They campaigned on “saving democracy” but can’t bring themselves to defend the democratically enacted laws being enforced by Trump.
Something like “we may not like these laws, we may not like how the administration speaks about them, but that’s why we need to work to elect more Democrats and change the laws. But for now we need to respect the individuals tasked with enforcing these laws.”
That would be legitimizing something Trump does, and that’s not possible to do.
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The problem with that is that "ICE agents are doing an important job" is itself a political statement. "ICE should be abolished" is a legitimate political opinion, and it entails that ICE agents are not in fact doing an important job but actively doing harm in the world. Believing this is not incompatible with acknowledging that they are, individually, human beings with rights and dignity, or that a civil society requires letting them act as the law permits them to do; but leftists are understandably wary of endorsing the kind of statement you propose, because it's very easy for them to smuggle in a surrender on the underlying political disagreements that define Left vs Right in the first place.
A closer analogy, perhaps, would be the bitter pill that pro-lifers have to swallow viz. abortion doctors. It should by all rights be incumbent upon Democrats to be as gracious regarding ICE agents as pro-lifers are regarding abortion providers. But notably this still allows pro-lifers to call abortion doctors murderers, and that is as it should be; you really, really shouldn't outlaw calling abortion murder on the grounds that it might incite acts of violence. Yet, increasingly, it seems that the Right wants the Left to do just that for ICE agents, and that's just not going to fly. That's just asking your political opponents to stop disagreeing with you about the actual politics.
Okay, but anything short of saying “federal agents doing their job” is tacitly enabling the narrative they’re Gestapo goose stepping into Home Depot to arrest anyone who looks Mexican. At some point, leadership has to say “I don’t like it, but it’s more important to protect officers doing their job” or they bare some responsibility for acts committed against them.
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It is a legitimate political opinion, but I can't help but notice most people with that position are saying that only now despite ICE having done deportations in mass under Obama and Biden. At least in terms of the raw numbers, Trump is not deporting in rates surpassing the previous administrations.
There certainly are differences in how ICE is operating, like how the time frame for expedited removal increased to 2 years from a previous 14 days. The number of border encounters is also down significantly, so the fact that the deportation rates have remained to similar levels does support the notion that ICE is targeting a larger population than they previously had. However, the call for the complete abolition of ICE versus a reversal to the previous status and mode of operation (which had comparatively very little calls to abolish the agency) to me suggests the position is not derived from principled values but rather an anti-trump position.
I recently talked to someone that very much had a "fuck ICE it should be abolished they contribute nothing of value" attitude and when I pressed him on the issues I think his issue was more on Trump's rhetoric and framing rather than what ICE was actually doing. He even acknowledged that he wasn't necessarily against immigration restrictions or post-migration enforcement! But even when I asked about the numbers, his first response was to question if comparing the number of deportations even accomplishes anything. I don't think I changed his mind much, but I think I at least brought down the temperature from his initial anger towards ICE.
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I can understand why leftists would make that distinction, but Democrats largely disclaim that kind of far left ideology, so they should be able to say that. I suppose their unwillingness to do so could be taken as implicit support of the leftist interpretation, but it could also be cowardice or just ineptitude.
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