The push to abolish ICE is the outgrowth of the growing belief on the left that no illegal alien should ever be deported unless they’ve been convicted of a non-immigration crime. Ocasio-Cortez alluded to this when she wrote that “We have to replace ICE with an updated INS-like structure that handles crime through the same court system we’ve had for well over 100 years.” This is gibberish, of course, since INS agents did precisely the same thing as ICE agents working on immigration, most of which did not involve criminal violations of immigration law but civil ones, which are handled by deportation, not imprisonment.

But this view predates the Democrats’ latest socialist sweetheart. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said back in 2013 “Our view of the law is, if somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation.” This is objectively false but shows how #AbolishICE grew out of mainstream Democratic party thought.