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Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

> ICE is not a partisan organization,

Only if you have your head deliberately under the sand in the face of all the reporting that has been done so far about wanton cruelty inflicted on human beings by this agency, including but not limited to:

* separation of toddlers from their parents * horrific conditions in detention facilities * detaining immigrants for as long as they possibly can * arresting and trying to deport brown people in suspicion of being illegal immigrants

If none of these policies affect you, yeah you can say "By the laws of the US, ICE is a non partisan branch of the Government". But the actions of the agency and its leadership have shown that its decidedly not so.

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The agency will live on past the current administration. The main function of ICE is needed. The policies imposed upon them from above are the root of the problem and need to be removed. But they will be gone in time, hopefully sooner rather than later.

ICE didn't exist until 2003, and isn't necessarily needed.

Sort of. The organization ICE didn't exist. The functions of ICE were executed by other organizations in the government and (correct me if I'm wrong) no additional responsibilities were really added to ICE whole-cloth; it's more of a post-9/11 consolidation of resources.

Abolishing ICE without considering the need for those responsibilities and what org, if any, should take them on is certainly risky. But technically, yes, we could abolish ICE and route things ICE does (immigration management, customs enforcement, non-military border security) to other executive departments (not necessarily back to their originating department, since instituting ICE also abolished some of its predecessor departments).

The US has had Border Patrol agents for 100 years. From 1920-1940 they were organized under the Department of Labor; from 1949 to 2003, the Department of Justice; since 2003, Homeland Security.

ICE isn't border patrol; they don't patrol American borders. That's CBP, which is a separate wing of the DHS, and focuses on an entirely different area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protec...

Huh?

The Programs division [of INS] was responsible for handling all the functions involved with enforcement and examinations, including the arrest, detaining, and deportation of illegal immigrants as well as controlling illegal and legal entry.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Naturalization...

Exactly. ICE isn't needed.

The name matters to you?

Names are important. I'll give you that.

I didn't realize solving the problem was as easy as renaming ICE back to INS.

I'm open to multiple ideas. Your idea of renaming seems to be useful for part of the process of rehabilitating ICE or whatever we're going to call it in the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebranding#Elimination_of_a_ne...

Well consider the cultural difference between an agency whose mission is enforcement and one whose mission is service.

You'd be more convincing if you demonstrated how the current purported "culture" problems were there the entire time pre-2016. And absent in INS before that.

Jesus Christ. It was called INS and did the same damn thing. Who cares if the name changed?

The predecessor, INS has an interesting history too. I'd experience some kind of small joy if a new INS were re-established "merging these previously separate areas of administration."

>INS, the agency ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred to three new entities – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as part of a major government reorganization following the September 11 attacks of 2001.

>Prior to 1933, there were separate offices administering immigration and naturalization matters, known as the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of Naturalization, respectively. The INS was established on June 10, 1933, merging these previously separate areas of administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Naturalization...

* also separation of children from smugglers. Stoping human trafficking is primary role of ICE.

Important to note that there are different divisions of ICE. The division that tackles International crime (HSI) is different from the one that subjects immigrants to cruelty (ERO).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/seeki...

> * separation of toddlers from their parents * horrific conditions in detention facilities * detaining immigrants for as long as they possibly can * arresting and trying to deport brown people in suspicion of being illegal immigrants

You've proven beyond all doubt that these actions are indeed partisan. Hence, we ought to resist the party that revved this into high gear - the one led by the deporter in chief [1]!! Resist!

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/01/20/510799842/obama-leaves-office...

you are making a convincing argument that the organization is extreme, but you haven't addressed the issue of whether or not it is partisan.

to do so you'd need to compare and contrast its behavior across administrations under different political parties. as one data point, roughly same # of people were deported under bush/obama (the definitions changed, so not quite apples to apples data wise).

It truly isn't a partisan organization. The Dems buried their heads when this happened under President "Deporter & Chief" Obama. People are pretending this issue is new because they didn't take the time to learn about it years ago. Some media reported on it under Obama, but few took the time until they were looking for ammunition against Trump.

No, don't do this both sidesim over here.

Obama prioritized deportation of those with criminal backgrounds. He created the DREAM program to help the millions of immigrants who spent most of their life in the US.

Its not the same.

The DREAM act has been around since 2001 and at its peak never even had even a million members throughout its existence. Illegals with a criminal background have always been preferred for deportation in the US. But my question how is which ICE is a government entity partisan for following the immigration edicts of the current administration?

Also looks like Both Sideism can go into the large book of unnecessary and arbitrary -ism words people have come up with during this presidency.

The act was never passed into law whereas Obama gave actual legal status to Dreamers and attempted to do the same for their parents too.

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