Steller's Friday Notebook: ‘Abolish ICE’ is a good slogan, but a loser of a political position

‘Abolish ICE” works great as a political slogan.

The phrase is direct, active, comprehensible.

But would it work as a plank in a political platform? Arizona Republicans are convinced it won’t, and Democrats don’t seem so sure that it will either.

I had heard “Abolish ICE” as a slogan among pro-immigration activists for more than a year before I went on a two-week vacation starting June 30. While I was gone, it entered the mainstream, with some Democratic candidates adopting it as part of their platform.

The problem: “Abolish ICE” is a great expression of outrage that doesn’t make a lot of sense as a policy proposal, unless you ask voters to consider a lot of nuance. And campaigns don’t usually win by asking masses of voters to follow them down a winding path of explanation.

The slogan came to the fore in recent weeks for a couple of reasons: The Trump administration’s policy of separating undocumented parents from their children, and the victory of leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Democratic primary in New York last month. Ocasio-Cortez called for the abolishment of ICE during her campaign and followed up her win with a call for protesters to occupy ICE offices nationwide.

In Arizona, Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Garcia got into the issue July 9 by calling for “replacing ICE.”

“Trump’s immoral actions — which (Gov. Doug) Ducey has enabled —demand that we rebuild our immigration system top-to-bottom and start by replacing ICE with an immigration system that reflects our American values, values I and so many before have served to protect,” he wrote.

Garcia never said “Abolish ICE,” but his potential opponent, Ducey, sensed a vulnerability in Garcia, the Democratic candidate Ducey’s campaign most fears.

Ducey, a Republican, published an op-ed in USA Today staking out a pro-ICE position: “As a border state governor who wakes up every day and goes to sleep every night with the safety and security of Arizona citizens at the top of mind, I want to be clear — this call to abolish ICE is not only wrong — it is reckless, and puts the people of my state and others in direct threat.”

That’s a questionable claim because ICE’s immigration-enforcement efforts focus on the interior of the country, not at the borders, where Customs and Border Protection does most of this work. But these details are probably politically irrelevant. A telephone poll by Republican-leaning firm Data Orbital found that 64 percent of likely Arizona voters oppose abolishing ICE.

Garcia’s top Democratic opponent, Steve Farley, came out against deconstructing ICE, saying “We need to fix ICE, not abolish it.”

Democratic candidate Kelly Fryer said she favors dismantling ICE and rebuilding immigration enforcement on a basis of human rights, not what she termed the militarism of the current approach.

And in Congress, when a bill was introduced that would have started a process of breaking apart ICE, even Tucson’s progressive Democratic mainstay, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, declined to sign on as a sponsor.

In Congress, too, Republicans saw an advantage. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Tucson, co-sponsored a resolution expressing support for ICE. While she and other Republicans voted yes, most Democrats voted “present,” and Grijalva voted no.

Funny thing is, there is nothing particularly offensive about abolishing ICE, because there is nothing sacred about an agency that is only 15 years old.

The question is what to do about its functions, which are primarily immigration enforcement and investigations in the country’s interior.

It’s a relatively radical proposal to say the government shouldn’t have those functions at all, but not so big a deal to say they should be moved to another agency with less baggage than ICE.

That kind of nuance is never going to come through in political campaigns, though.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

In that venue, “Abolish ICE” means stop enforcing immigration laws, which is a loser of a political position.

Gosar targets Ironwood

Rep. Paul Gosar lives in Flagstaff which is not in his congressional district, encompassing western Arizona. Maybe he just gets confused about where his business begins and ends.

Gosar, a Republican, introduced an amendment to an Interior Department appropriations bill that would have stripped Ironwood Forest National Monument, northwest of Tucson, of its funding. That would have functionally killed off the monument.

This is an extension of an effort by Gosar and some other Arizona Republicans to roll back national monuments designated in the state. All of Arizona’s four Democratic House members voted against the amendment, which lost 220-193. Of Arizona’s five Republican House members, only Rep. Martha McSally voted against it.

The monument is in Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s district, and he spoke against the proposed amendment before it was defeated.

“The fact that it is in my district is secondary to the callous disregard to public input, the wishes of Southern Arizona, the history of the area, and the biodiversity that this amendment attacks,” he said.

Miller hires Hunnicutt

The conservative news website Arizona Daily Independent is in transition after its chief operator, Loretta Hunnicutt, took a temporary job at Pima County working for Supervisor Ally Miller.

“I have a natural distrust of politicians and the only honest politician I know is Ally Miller,” Hunnicutt told my colleague Hank Stephenson, adding that she’s “fortunate and honored” to work for the supervisor. Hunnicutt said she’s handed over control of the site to longtime friend Terry Smith, who will be running the business side of things.

Smith said he has an interim editor overseeing the editorial side, though he’s looking for someone permanent. He said he’s considering a format change, but is talking it over with his lawyers first.

Hunnicutt, who has regularly published work supporting Miller, told Stephenson her site had no ties to the supervisor. “We’re citizen journalists. We make sure we get it right,” she said.

County records show Hunnicutt is earning $25 per hour as a temporary employee working two days per week.

Clodfelter on TUSD deseg

State Rep. Todd Clodfelter, a Republican representing LD-10, has scheduled a forum on Tucson Unified School District’s desegregation funding for 6 p.m. Tuesday July 31 at Tucson Baptist Church, 1525 S. Columbus Blvd. The featured speakers will be Gabriel Trujillo, TUSD’s superintendent, and Sean McCarthy of the Arizona Tax Research Association.

New political vocab

When President Trump’s supporters struggled Monday and Tuesday to deal with his performance at a Helsinki press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, it was a pregnant period of time. It struck me there ought to be a word for that period between when a politician does something bad and when his supporters figure out how to spin it, or justify it.

I think I found the word: Spinterlude.