Garrett Graff writes about 6 ways to reform ICE and CBP for the current DHS funding negotiations, but also about how the congressional reforms being discussed likely cannot resolve the root of the problems at CBP/ICE, which is culture and leadership.
"America cannot survive as a free society if ICE and CBP continue to operate as they have over the last year — let alone as both agencies are turbocharged and empowered with even more funding, more officers, more guns, and more arrests.
To that end, Congress is going to spend the next week arguing over the most necessary and politically possible reforms. This is a critical moment to change that trajectory and almost surely the best chance we as a nation will have all year to arrest the government-led violence on our streets.
But what could that reform look like? Across the board, it means making these agents act more like civilians in a democracy rather than a right-wing paramilitary militia loyal to the regime. I’ve spent the last few days talking to people in and around this issue and have six areas where I hope Congress focuses its attention to demand and implement major and concrete reforms could be made immediately.
Here’s a list of some things that would actually make a difference: (Read the full article for the explanations of each reform area)
- Basic Uniform and Identification Standards
- Use of Force
- Enforcement Standards and Restrictions
- Hiring Standards and Training
- Technology Limits
- Detention Facilities
But all of those reforms — even if literally all of them come to pass, which they surely won’t in the congressional sausage making — only goes so far. Which brings me to:
The Real Problem with ICE and CBP Reform:
Overall, here’s the real challenge: I’m not actually sure any of the above really matters. Congress can’t mandate or legislate the only type of reform that is actually going to matter: Culture and leadership. All of these proposed reforms are arguing and negotiating around the margins of the fundamental problem: We have created a monster rampaging through the heart of our democracy and are trying to define and restrict which cities it can pillage and how many civilians it can eat. The problem isn’t the restrictions on the Frankensteinian monster we’ve brought alive over the last 20 years; the problem is the monster."
Posted by loremipsumot
7 Comments
Galaxy brain: if a Dem becomes president in 2028, they should fire all CBP and ICE employees under the authority of Trump’s EO re:unilateral power of the President to fire any employee of the Executive branch. Then scrap that EO immediately.
22 years ago we said all this would happen and now it’s too damn late. You can’t reform a heavily armed paramilitary group that’s loyal only to the president into a normal law enforcement organization. The culture is rotten, the powers granted to it too broad and its crimes are too great to brush under the rug. Abolishing ICE is the only solution.
> Everyone who says “there aren’t enough ICE” misunderstands how this would work — you don’t need to “patrol” or scare off voters at every polling place. Control of Congress will be decided by a small number of swing districts; deploying 100-200 agents apiece into just 15-20 congressional districts and urban polling places would probably be all they needed to do.
So glad to finally see someone speaking some sense. There is a real threat here
1. Abolish them
2. Nuremberg
It’s pretty clear that both agencies are beyond salvage. Both need to be abolished, their officers barred from federal service (at minimum) and a new agency needs to be created from the ground up.
Deploy the military as border control in the meantime while that process occurs
We need to:
Obviously abolish these agencies, but if we can’t do that:
1. Transfer ICE/CBP and all other federal law enforcement agencies to be controlled by an independent commission like the ones in Korea/Japan, a National Public Safety Commission. Depoliticize the leadership of law enforcement so the agencies can’t be ordered to unilaterally act by the President. We already have national guard and military to act under times of emergency if the President needs to unilaterally order people. Law enforcement agencies should remain in law enforcement, without any political pressure.
2. Merge ICE, DEA, ATF into the FBI. We really shouldn’t have multiple often competing law enforcement agencies. Especially given the longstanding corruption issues in the ATF and now ICE we need to do away with them. I also feel an agency specialized for internal immigration enforcement attracts crazy people and psychopaths who think they’re fighting an alien invasion. Finding individuals that are to be deported to be a dispassionate process done by agents who just so happen to be assigned such a task between real police work on fighting crime syndicates or finding murderers.
True, Congress cannot, by mandate, effectively change the attitude and culture of people in an agency. Humans simply do not work that way. But, Congress can get rid of the people at issue:
– impeachment and removal of Noem and Bondi
– defunding and/or abolishing ICE and CPB while moving immigration enforcement to DOJ or a wholly new agency staffed from aources other than ICE/CPB.
There is no institutional knowledge in the present structure that resembles professional law enforcement, and thus nothing worth keeping.