On Tuesday’s “CNN This Morning,” Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) said that he agrees that the issue with abolish ICE as a phrase is that it puts all the attention on ICE, but “we’ve got to start somewhere, and starting with ICE would be the right thing to do.”
Thanedar said, “I brought a bill in Congress to abolish ICE. So, ICE, as it stands, cannot continue. We’ve got to reform this.”
Host Audie Cornish then said, “I want to play for you something that I heard from Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA), I asked him about these calls to abolish ICE. Here’s what he said:”
She then played video of Walkinshaw saying, “I think the problem with that phrase is, it puts all of the focus on ICE. And we know, now, and we talk about Alex Pretti, it wasn’t an ICE officer, it was CBP. We’ve got thousands of CBP officers who have committed some of the most egregious abuses. So, I think all of it, the entire mass deportation, mass destruction apparatus the Trump administration has put together, has to be rebuilt from the ground up.”
Thanedar responded, “Well, I agree with the Congressman. But we’ve got to start somewhere, and starting with ICE would be the right thing to do. What is happening — people have seen these video cameras, people have seen these videos, and Trump and Noem can’t just tell us that’s not the case.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett