ICE’s approval rating among Americans currently sits at negative 13 points, a recent poll revealed.

More Americans support abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency than at any point since it was established in 2003, new polling shows.

According to data examined by Civiqs, 42% support getting rid of the agency while 50% oppose doing so, a split of just 8 points. This represents a major shift from a year ago, at the start of Donald Trump’s second term, when only 24% of Americans supported abolishing ICE and 59% opposed the idea, a 35-point split.

The 27-point change over the past year comes as Trump uses the agency to terrorize immigrant communities and overrun U.S. cities in the name of his mass deportation campaign, often using tactics that are not only harmful but illegal.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    50% oppose doing so

    I don’t know if I’d support abolishing them. But I would definitely support reeling them in, defunding them by a lot, and having a lot more oversight, including from the states, on where they can go, and how they are used. All the cosplaying bullshit should be taken away from them (and cops, too) - the militarization is just ridiculous.

    And for sure - none of these fuckers should be masked. Not ONE of them should be allowed to do that job anonymously.

    If those changes are not on the table, yeah, abolish ICE.

    So I really wonder how that 50% looks if you were to dig in. Probably a LOT of nuance in there.

    • awfulawful@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 hour ago

      I think it would be more effective to get rid of ICE and use those resources to properly fund the immigration court system, so it can process cases much more quickly.

      There is the bigger issue of addressing the causes also. Over a century of destabilizing its neighbors to exploit them for private profit and keep them firmly within the US sphere of influence has predicability created a lot of migration. Fixing that will take many years though.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        13 minutes ago

        Yeah, all good points. The conservatives only like to talk about people “invading” the country “only” for things like economic ones (in other words, finding a job). They don’t like to talk about any systemic things and how things like NAFTA might have created such conditions…

        Anyway, yeah, depending on the options of either shrinking ICE to a fraction of their funding and size and constraining them in a sane way, or the plan to outright abolish them - the implementation would matter a great deal as to what would make the most sense.

        If it’s done smash-and-grab style like the fake “doge” group did, I don’t think that’d be good. If there are actual plans to spin down staff and transition responsibilities and data to other appropriate group(s), being led by someone that actually knows something - that’d be the right way.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      53 minutes ago

      We don’t need ICE. We’ve got so many overlapping alphabet agencies we don’t need yet another bloated gestapo. ICE, CBP, USCIS, etc. a warrant to a local PD to arrest someone should be sufficient, not a convoy of masked military cosplay racists shooting people because their fee fees got hurt.