Abolition Is Still The Only Way Out Of This

Forget the useless so-called “reforms” to ICE and policing currently on offer. We need much more fundamental change.

By Andrea J. Ritchie, The Nation

As the scale and scope of state violence against migrants and the neighbors and community members who protect them—including the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis and of Keith Porter and Silverio Villegas González by ICE in Los Angeles and Chicago—has rapidly escalated over the first year of the second Trump administration, so have the familiar calls for quick fixes for state violence.

Meanwhile, hopes placed in Democrats to save us by finally recognizing that the police state they have helped build is the vehicle through which authoritarianism is being consolidated are repeatedly dashed. This is true of the party’s recent, tepid proposals to put “guardrails” on ICE.

The plan calls on agents to stop wearing masks; identify themselves; don body cameras and standardized uniforms; follow existing laws that prohibit racial profiling and require a warrant for agents to enter private property; and verify whether a person is a US citizen before detaining them (thus continuing to legitimize detention of non-citizens).

All of these small fixes patently fail to present any real challenge to the systems and agencies that are waging war on our communities—though, if agreed to, they would clear the way for Democrats to vote for record funding for ICE.