New York Times
By Nick Corasaniti
August 12, 2018
WHIPPANY, N.J. — Flanked by two county sheriffs and a former agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jay Webber, the Republican candidate for Congress in a battleground district in northern New Jersey, was eager to declare his allegiance to the federal agency.
“I stand with ICE; I oppose all efforts to abolish it,” he said. “My opponent has organized rallies calling for the abolition of ICE, organized rallies calling for open borders. It is a stark contrast between me and Mikie Sherrill, and we’re here to underscore that.”
Except that his Democratic opponent, Ms. Sherrill, who was a Navy pilot and a federal prosecutor, also does not support abolishing ICE. And her campaign did not organize the events, but instead Ms. Sherrill attended two rallies where other speakers made such demands.
Calls to abolish ICE first took root on the far left of the Democratic Party, but have quickly been embraced by insurgent candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the upstart Democratic congressional candidate from New York. Now, even more mainstream Democrats, like Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, support eliminating the agency.
It began last year, when the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants by ICE doubled in President Trump’s first year, but quickly gained momentum as images of children being taken from their parents at the border sparked rebukes from Democrats and Republicans. Even though the Trump administration has retreated from this policy, the government is still struggling deeply to reunite families.
But with the midterm elections quickly approaching, the call to abolish ICE is being seized by Republicans eager to shift the immigration debate from the forced separation of families to a debate about secure borders.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly accused Democrats of wanting to do away with ICE, seeking to rile up the Republican base with an eye to the fall elections. The Republican National Committee has been issuing lists of Democratic candidates around the country who have not explicitly stated their support for the agency. The issue has started appearing in campaign ads from Republican groups and candidates from Texas to Arizona to New York.
And it is giving Republicans in states where Mr. Trump remains unpopular a strategy to try to connect with his base without directly tying themselves to the president. Bob Hugin, the Republican candidate for Senate in New Jersey, has repeatedly distanced himself from Mr. Trump, but has used the debate over ICE as a way to criticize his Democratic opponent, Senator Robert Menendez, who while critical of the president’s immigration policies, has not embraced the abolish ICE movement.
Mr. Webber recently challenged Ms. Sherrill to debate him “exclusively on the topic of immigration.” She responded by saying she would debate Mr. Webber, a former Assembly member, on a variety of topics, including “how we fix our broken immigration system with real solutions.’’
The issue has put moderate Democratic candidates around the country — from Ms. Sherrill in New Jersey to Representative Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona and Senator Bill Nelson in Florida — in a difficult position. They are being forced to break with some members of their own party to answer repeated accusations from their Republican opponents attempting to wrap them into the abolish ICE movement.
Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat running against Mr. Webber, does not endorse the elimination of ICE, but said she does believe there is a need for comprehensive immigration reform.
It is a debate that has many Democrats fretting in competitive races in the House and Senate, where Democrats are hoping to win back the House and defend 10 Senate incumbents in states Mr. Trump won in 2016. Of the 67 candidates listed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” list, only one — Randy Bryce in Wisconsin — has been a vocal supporter of abolishing ICE. Many see the issue as a needlessly confrontational framing of a position many Democrats share: reforming, but not eliminating, the agency, and overhauling the way it has operated both under Mr. Trump and former President Obama.
“Democrats are fighting for bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform that is tough, fair and keeps Americans safe,” said Meredith Kelly, the communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Rather than abolishing ICE, we must reform this broken agency to bring more accountability, morality and strength to our border security.”
Other Democrats around the country have been more blunt.
“It’s crazy town,” said Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, rolling her eyes when asked about the issue in an interview with The Times last month at a Dairy Queen in Langdon, N.D. The junior senator is facing a tough challenge from Representative Kevin Cramer and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report has the race listed as a toss up.
Ms. Heitkamp said there had been misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding ICE’s role, which can get lost in the emotionally charged debate around immigration.
“I don’t think some people understand that ICE is interior,” said Ms. Heitkamp, meaning that the agency operates within the country’s borders, while Customs and Border Protection is responsible for border security. “And you have to have someone who is going to be responsible for enforcing our immigration laws in the interior, and that’s ICE. And you can disagree with how they’re doing their job, but that’s not their choice. They’re not some rogue agency who’s not following orders over at the Department of Homeland Security.”
The dynamic in the race between Ms. Sherrill and Mr. Webber is becoming familiar in competitive districts across the country. In New York’s 22nd district, which runs from the southern border of New York state near Binghamton to the shores of Lake Ontario, Representative Claudia Tenney, a Republican, has been broadcasting an ad accusing “Washington liberals” of wanting to abolish ICE and linking her Democratic opponent, Anthony Brindisi, to the effort. Mr. Brindisi, a state assemblyman, does not embrace the movement and ran his own ads rebutting the accusations.
While it has become a polarizing issue on the campaign trail, it has not gotten much broad support — a recent poll from Politico/Morning Consult found that only 25 percent of voters endorse eliminating ICE.
In New Jersey, where Democrats are hoping to win as many as four of the five Republican House seats, as well as defend freshman Representative Josh Gottheimer, all four challengers and Mr. Gottheimer have said they do not want to abolish the agency.
Yet it is still causing headaches for candidates.
Andy Kim, who is challenging Representative Tom MacArthur in the Third District, which stretches across the southern part of the state, was recently chased while talking on his cellphone by a member of MacArthur campaign and repeatedly asked whether he supported the calls to abolish ICE. Mr. Kim ignored this and got into his car. He later issued a statement to The New Jersey Globe making it clear that he was not in favor of eliminating the agency.
Not all Democrats across the country are running away from the issue. Mr. Bryce in Wisconsin, who is running to replace Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who is retiring, has repeatedly campaigned on the issue. Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in New York’s Democratic Primary, called ICE a “terrorist organization.”
But as Republicans continue to seize on the issue, some strategists believe there is a silver lining for Democrats.
“I bet there are a lot of people who are frustrated that they’re dealing with this issue,” said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist. “But my answer to them would be, if I was working for them, is, ‘Listen, this is an opportunity. Take advantage of it. If that’s not your position, you can use that to prove to voters that you’re not like the Democrats that they’re concerned about.’”
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