Socialist Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in an interview with ABC News which aired Sunday, appeared to argue Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not necessary partly because it is younger than him.
Host Jonathan Karl pressed the mayor, who took office Jan. 1, over his past remarks calling for the abolition of ICE. Karl asked Mamdani how he would go about enforcing immigration laws in the absence of the organization and where he thinks “they shouldn’t be enforced.”
“You do it with a little bit of humanity,” Mamdani claimed during his interview with Karl on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” The interview was recorded Friday, the day before Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
“You know, immigration existed long before ICE.” the socialist mayor added. “ICE is a modern creation. I’m older than ICE.”
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“But you’ve always had an org— whatever you call it, you’ve had an organization to enforce those rules,” Karl followed up.
“I would separate ICE from an organization that looks to enforce these rules,” Mamdani replied. “ICE is an organization that cares little for the rules. It’s an organization that operates with reckless impunity and seems to revel in the flouting of those kinds of rules. And that’s what gives people a real sense of fear. ICE agents are masked. You oftentimes have no idea.”
The mayor went on to claim that there have been “instances in this country of people pretending to be ICE agents because they know that there’s no identification.”
ICE was formed in March 2003 after being created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, a bipartisan law signed by former President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mamdani was born in 1991.
Before the creation of ICE, its present duties were carried out by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the U.S. Customs Service, which had been in operation since 1933 and 1789, respectively. Both of these agencies were dissolved by the passage of the Homeland Security Act.
After news broke Saturday that Border Patrol agents shot and killed a man, later identified as Pretti, Mamdani wrote on X, “ICE terrorizes our cities. ICE puts us all in danger. Abolish ICE.”
While ICE and Border Patrol are separate agencies, they are both part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
In addition to the leftist Mamdani, a chorus of other elected Democrats across various factions of the party — including its establishment and moderate wings — have spoken out against ICE following the fatal shootings of Pretti and Renee Good.
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