Opinion | Save immigration enforcement. Abolish ICE.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should be abolished.

That is not politically feasible in the near term, but it is nevertheless the correct course — and hardly radical. Properly understood, abolition is a responsible response to institutional failure: a recognition that when institutional and moral rot pervade a law-enforcement body, preserving essential functions requires dismantling the institution itself and rebuilding those functions in a new and lawful form.

I write this as someone who understands the necessity of responsible immigration enforcement. During the early years of the Clinton administration, I held the migration brief at the National Security Council, when the U.S. confronted complex challenges involving Haitians and Cubans fleeing their countries of origin, as well as Chinese migrants entering through irregular and often dangerous routes. Whatever the policy disputes at the time, there was no disagreement that immigration enforcement was a legitimate and essential function of government. The question was never whether enforcement was necessary, but how it could be carried out responsibly and lawfully.

History offers a clear lesson about what to do when institutions become irredeemable. When they are politicized, unaccountable, detached from legal norms, and both feared and ridiculed for these deficiencies, reform is insufficient. East Germany dissolved the Stasi not because intelligence gathering was unnecessary, but because the institution had become inseparable from repression. South Africa reconstituted its apartheid-era security police because they enforced racial domination rather than public safety. Guatemala abolished its national police after civil war because corruption and collusion with violence were systemic. And the country of Georgia famously fired nearly all of its traffic police overnight because corruption was so pervasive that incremental reform could not restore public trust. In each case, essential functions continued through and after transition — but only after institutional rupture. And in most cases, many personnel committed to the rule of law were retained in the new institutions.

The relevance of this pattern to ICE is no longer possible to ignore. Over time, ICE has accumulated a record that reflects not isolated misconduct but recurring structural problems — evidence of advanced institutional decay. There have been credible reports of unlawful killings, along with arbitrary arrests, abusive detention practices and retaliation against demonstrators.

Equally troubling is the degree to which ICE enforcement has become politicized. A telling example lies here in Minnesota. It is not a border state and has a lower proportion of immigrants than states such as Florida and Texas. Moreover, Minnesota hosts roughly 130,000 unauthorized immigrants, while Florida and Texas together host about 3.7 million. Yet it is Minnesota that has been subjected to widely disproportionate federal enforcement operations. The president himself has publicly framed Minnesota’s immigrant communities in starkly political terms, targeting Somali immigrants and referring to them as “garbage” that “we don’t want … in our country.”

These racist remarks coincided with increased enforcement activity in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, making clear the connection between political targeting and operational choices. When enforcement priorities are driven by political signaling rather than law, resources or risk, institutional integrity erodes rapidly.

This dynamic reflects a familiar authoritarian pattern. Authoritarian systems do not rely solely on formal punishment; they cultivate fear through proximity — by targeting communities, intimidating families and creating uncertainty that extends beyond those directly accused. When such tactics persist without meaningful internal correction, the problem is not individual misconduct. It is institutional capture by a political agenda incompatible with democratic law enforcement.

None of this implies that border control or immigration enforcement should cease. On the contrary, abolishing ICE would be an act of institutional preservation rather than abandonment. What is required is reconstitution: the creation of a new, demilitarized immigration enforcement authority with a narrow mandate, clear legal boundaries, robust oversight and personnel standards designed to prevent politicization. Such an agency would focus on genuine public-safety threats, operate transparently and remain accountable to courts and the public alike.

Abolition is simply an acknowledgment that administrative agencies derive legitimacy from adherence to law and purpose. When that adherence collapses, rebuilding becomes the most responsible course. ICE should be abolished not because immigration enforcement is unnecessary, but because it is too important to be entrusted to an institution that no longer meets the basic requirements of democratic law enforcement.