The Senate Must Not Fund ICE, A Zero Hour Conversation With Sonali Kolhatkar

“We’ve seen a really sharp change in how the public views immigration enforcement, particularly ice, to the point where more Americans now support completely abolishing ICE than those who support preserving it.”

By RJ Eskow and Sonali Kolhatkar, The Zero Hour

In this conversation RJ is joined by Senior Correspondent Sonali Kolhatkar to unpack a story that is moving at “tragically high velocity.” We discuss her latest column at OtherWords.org and the grim reality of the ICE funding battle. Despite the heartbreaking killings in Minneapolis, the Democratic establishment has been afraid to lead.

The transcript is below.

TRANSCRIPT

(Text has been lightly edited for clarity.)

00:00:08 Richard Eskow

Your latest piece as we speak, and I should note in this world of rapid news cycles that we are speaking on Monday, January 26, about a story that is moving at tragically high velocity. That is the ICE story. Your latest column, For Other Words, which comes out, which is published@OtherWords.org is headlined The Senate Must Not Fund ICE, sub headline.

00:00:40 

The money fueling ICE’s abuses comes directly out of the pockets of working Americans who are already struggling. So some people will see this online or through social media. But the funding deadline is January 30th. The program goes out, I believe, the a day or two after that. So some people, you know, there may be some sort of resolution to that piece of it.

00:01:05 

But let’s just talk in general about funding ice, the sudden revival of interest. I’ll start with this when I think when I sent out an email when Abalash ICE was first a popular slogan on the left was with the headline abolish ice. I got chastised by people that this was radical phrasing and ideology that would never enter the political mainstream.

00:01:38 

And I mean, entering the political mainstream is not my primary goal in life. But at least in segments of the Democratic Party, it seems as if it’s beginning to, while other segments are resisting it. Is that fair? Because your article, your column hints at that.

00:01:56 Sonali Kolhatkar

It absolutely is. It’s actually quite remarkable how stunning the turnaround is, you know, and it unfortunately speaks to the fact that the public is malleable, like. Well, you can think of it either way, right? The public is malleable to, to imagery, to rhetoric. And so as recently as 2024, there was a thirst in the public because poll after poll showed that people were wanting greater immigration enforcement because they were hearing that from candidate Trump.

00:02:32 

And Joe Biden as president was not, you know, was also echoing a lot of this, this rhetoric. And now given everything that ICE has been doing in cities around the country, starting last year, you know, when Los Angeles became the epicenter last June and even really before that, and then moved on city by city, places like Chicago.

00:02:55 

And of course, now the flashpoint is Minneapolis. We’ve seen a really sharp change in how the public views immigration enforcement, particularly ice, to the point where more Americans now support completely abolishing ICE than those who support preserving it. It’s not quite a majority. It is a plurality. But that, to me, is a remarkable thing to, to entirely abolish a federal agency.

00:03:21 

But it shouldn’t be that shocking because it’s, you know, of course, you and I would see ICE and police forces as the same thing, and don’t see either one as being terribly radical to call for an abolishing. However, ICE and its abolishment should be much more accessible than calling, you know, than the actual abolishment of all police.

00:03:42 

Because ICE has only been around since 2003. It was formed in the wake of the September 11th attacks. It is not an institution that has existed from time immemorial. It’s brand new and it has been given extra powers just in the past couple of years than it’s ever had. The majority of its new funding from the so called big beautiful bill.

00:04:01 

And it is a supercharged, essentially lawless militia that is going around killing people left, right and center, hurting and maiming people, whether they’re documented or undocumented or citizens, whether they’re men, whether they’re white men or white women or people of color or black men. Everybody who stands up in any way to them is facing their wrath.

00:04:23 

The most recent victim, of course, being the 37 year old ICU nurse who worked at the VA named Alex Pretty.

00:04:32 Richard Eskow

I’m really glad you brought this up, Sonali, because the phrase abolish ice, which a lot of centrist Democratic politicians and consultants were sure was going to hurt the Democratic Party, and after a couple election losses, they blame that phrase, even though Democrats didn’t use it. I think the worst that can be said about it is, and I’m not against the phrase by any means, is that, well, perhaps people didn’t fully understand that everything this majority you mentioned of people in 2024 who wanted immigration laws enforced, well, that was happening before I was created.

00:05:18 

The Department of Homeland Security is this monstrosity put together of 22 different agencies. And the idea that, you know, we can look at it a different way, that, you know, you could have the open borders view that says we shouldn’t prevent anybody at any time from coming into the United States. Well, abolish ICE fits with that, but it also fits with people who think, you know, let’s not have this supercharged paramilitary force doing what’s essentially a law enforcement job, you know, for a relatively minor infraction, coming into the country without the proper documentation.

00:05:59 

I mean, it’s not murder, it’s not robbery, it’s not. It’s not felony fraud of the type that bank executives commit with impunity, for example.

00:06:08 Sonali Kolhatkar

It’s that Trump has committed, that Trump.

00:06:10 Richard Eskow

Has, you know, so. But nobody, you know, so you can embrace a lot of schools of thought within that phrase. And I think people are Beginning to see now that ICE has become a private paramilitary force. I would argue a lot of things leading up to this made it almost inevitable. But, but whether you do or don’t agree with me, I think it’s becoming, it’s getting to the point where certainly a majority of the party in the House voted in effect to defund ICE or reduce ICE funding.

00:06:55 Sonali Kolhatkar

Yeah.

00:06:56 Richard Eskow

Did I get that basically right? Yeah.

00:06:58 Sonali Kolhatkar

So let me explain a little bit, right, like the, the majority, the majority of ISIS brand new sort of supercharging funding came from the so called big beautiful bill. But what has come up now is in the House in the appropriations bill to simply fund the government for another few months, this issue of giving ICE more money on top of what it is getting from the big beautiful bill came up and in, you know, not enough House Democrats stood firm.

00:07:32 

The majority of them did stand firm and voted against the appropriations bill that would give ICE more funding. But seven House Democrats gave Republicans the necessary kind of COVID and numbers to pass it, including people like Henry Cuellar in Texas. So up until Alex Pretty’s killing, it looked like very possibly the Senate was also going to pass this bill because in order to block it you need 41 votes because there needs to be.

00:08:06 

It’s an appropriations bill. In this particular case, with the specific technicality of it, 60 votes are needed to pass it out of the Senate. And so if 41 of 100 senators say no, it would get blocked. Now Democrats have 41 votes. Were Democrats going to, you know, whip themselves into shape to, to ensure that they block the bill until Alex Pretty was killed?

00:08:32 

That was not at all a done deal. And in fact, you know, just going back to the House like Hakeem Jeffries essentially did not whip the vote. He could have whipped the vote. There was a whole New York Times article about how he sort of, he said he was against the ICE appropriations, that he would be voting against it, but he would not whip his party’s vote to get a unified front against it.

00:08:52 

And so the same thing was looking likely in the Senate where Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer didn’t look like he was going to try to play both sides. I’m against this, but I’m not going to demand. Every one of my colleagues joins me now. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that he will do so.

00:09:09 

And you know, it’s terrible, terrible that, that it, that Alex Pretty had to be killed in order for Senate Democrats to see this. So if they vote to block this money, it just means that ICE doesn’t get the little extra icing on the cake that it wanted. It doesn’t mean that ICE is defunded, but it should be a first step.

00:09:29 

And for Democrats to take this step in and of itself, given how milquetoast the party is and how spineless it is, it would definitely be a victory. But there needs to be more. You know, you see people like Zoran Mamdani very clearly and unequivocally saying ICE needs to be, be abolished. And then you see centrist, like he’s in touch with the people.

00:09:48 

Then you see centrist Democrats like Gavin Newsom, who has his eye in the 2028 presidency, going on Ben Shapiro’s show and you know, basically defending ICE agents for like bas, you know, oh, they have a hard job, et cetera. So really, which, which, which version, which leader is more likely to be echoing the public opinion?

00:10:10 

I think it’s fairly obvious.

00:10:13 Richard Eskow

You know, ICE had, has already had an astronomical series of increases in its budget. So to add more to it was, it should have been something the Democrats push back on more severely. But for Chuck Schumer to be roused from his torpor to take action on it, I think is really saying something.

00:10:46 

And I think it’s tragic, by the way, especially tragic that it took the cold blooded murders of two middle class white people to, to raise this. But they are also gratuitous examples of totalitarian violence. And I guess that in this sense the Democrats, once again, they’re trying. Well, this is my sense for you.

00:11:17 

Tell me if I’m wrong. Their voters have moved way ahead of them on this issue and once again they’re running to the head of the parade and trying to pretend that they’re leading it. I think that they’ve. You mentioned that a plurality of voters wants to either what was it to defund ICE or reduce the.

00:11:38 Sonali Kolhatkar

Abolish it. I mean it was, it was reality. Wants to abolish it, which is really remarkable.

00:11:45 Richard Eskow

And that’s nearly 50% of the public. That’s 46%. Right.

00:11:49 Sonali Kolhatkar

And this is the Economist YouGov poll. This isn’t some like, data for progress thing.

00:11:53 Richard Eskow

Right?

00:11:54 Sonali Kolhatkar

46% of respondents support abolishing ICE, 43 oppose getting rid of it. Like that’s remarkable.

00:12:02 Richard Eskow

So we would have to assume that this 46%, I have obviously looked, seen the poll, but that is primarily Democrats, but also some independents. And that now ice, instead of riding this wave of, you know, exploding funding, at least in the court of public opinion, has to fight for its survival. But who’s going to lead this fight.

00:12:31 

Now, Sonali, by the time, I think between now, today, when you and I are speaking and at the end of the week, people can speak up forcefully, let their senators know how they feel about this funding and demand that they stop it. Depending on what happens, who’s going to lead the struggle. One of the things that’s striking to me about it and to an extent certainly inspiring, although disappointing from a political point of view, is that it’s being led by people, the people themselves that, you know, you have these spontaneous organizations of people coming together, using signal or whatever app to communicate with one another, monitoring ICE at significant personal danger to themselves.

00:13:30 

You have people organizing protests, again, not without danger by any means. And it seems to me that if we look to the future, no matter how the Democrats vote, and I hope they vote to knock this down, this is going to have to continue to be a people led movement. The Democrats, I have the feeling would, would, would cave on this as soon.

00:13:55 Sonali Kolhatkar

As the he was their instinct is to keep tacking. Right. Their instinct is not to say, oh, if this is what the, if this is what the Republicans want, we should want the opposite. Right. Like that’s what that would be sort of the standard political like polarizing behavior. And that’s what the Republicans do.

00:14:14 

We’re against this because the Democrats are for it. Even their own policies that they have ordinarily supported in the past, they’ll take a stand against them because they see their colleagues in the Democratic Party against Democrats. It’s completely the other way around. They’re like, if that’s what the Republicans want, we should want that too so that their voters will like us better.

00:14:34 

It’s really thirsty, you know, it’s a needy, thirsty, clingy approach to politics. And nobody finds that attractive to use a dating analogy, frankly. Right. Like you find what do you, what are people attracted to those who have values, who take a stand, who are strong, who, who know themselves who can be relied to have integrity.

00:14:57 

Where’s the integrity here? Biden was the one who was over and over again talking about borders, talking, giving strong rhetoric about border policies. Even if his actual policies, policies on immigration were to the significantly to the left of Trump, his rhetoric wasn’t. And those things have power. So you see this party continuously just failing its voters over and over again.

00:15:24 

And you’re right that you know who’s going to lead the charge now we are seeing some people there, there are a lot of sort of younger Democrats who are taking stands. For example, there has been A piece of legislation introduced in the House by Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who comes from a mixed status immigrant family, who herself has faced threats of deportation from the Trump administration and Trump’s allies.

00:15:49 

So she has introduced a bill to abolish ice. Why don’t enough House Democrats rally behind that bill to try to push it? Right. You know what we’re going to be hearing a lot of, Richard, that I’m really kind of worried about this year. We’re in a midterm election year and Democrats are going to be saying, vote for us, vote for us.

00:16:07 

Give us the majorities in both houses of Congress so that we can stand up to Trump. And they’re not going to actually try very hard to win over our votes on policies. It’s going to be same old we’re not Trump rhetoric. But it would be so easy for them to win Congress if they took stands on bread and butter issues.

00:16:27 

And I’ll just finish with one last thing. There is a finite pot of money. Right. It doesn’t mean that ice, when ICE gets endless amounts of resources thrown at it. It means that other programs have to be cut in order to fund ice. This is the anti abolitionist math at play here. This is the math of a capitalist police state.

00:16:53 

And an abolitionist framework would say, defund ice, fund the things that keep us safe, food stamps, housing, education, et cetera. And so that is such a clear vision of what the Democrats could get behind if they vote, if they really wanted voters to back them in the midterms.

00:17:13 Richard Eskow

Well, and I can’t imagine that the vote against, vote for us and will stop Trump tactics going to work very well, because that’s based on, hey, you know, this guy is a fascist. Which they’ve been saying for 10 years, even when, you know, there was only.

00:17:31 Sonali Kolhatkar

They keep trying it, though. Like, that’s all Newsom still has. That’s all Newsom keeps offering.

00:17:36 Richard Eskow

Well, here’s actual fascism. This is. I’m very, I was very reluctant to see that word used, much less overused. But this has all the hallmarks of fascism. It is classic and they’re not doing anything about it. And then they’re going to say, vote for us so that we can stop Trump’s fascism. While you didn’t do it when you could the last X number of times, why should we believe you now?

00:18:03 

To me, it seems like not only are they. The primary issue is moral, of course, but. And then the next issue is saving what’s left of, you know, the shreds, tattered shreds. Of democracy we might have left. But then the third is, look, if you guys want to get re elected, you’re going about it the wrong way.

00:18:24 Sonali Kolhatkar

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if they wanted, they could be laying the groundwork right now for the midterm elections by rallying behind the things that their base wants. Right. Rallying ban very clear issues like taxing the rich, abolishing ICE funding the things that actually keep us safe, addressing the cost of living. Look, just like literally follow what, Follow Mamdani’s playbook in New York City.

00:18:50 

He’s so clearly showing the way. They all said it would be impossible for him to get universal childcare funded. Guess what he did right? In the first week of his, you know, administration, he was able to convince the governor of New York to make money available and people and applications are now open.

00:19:08 

Right. Like, and that’s just one thing that he’s done out the gate. He is like coming through on all his promises and it’s a very clear enactment of the campaign that he ran on. It was just such a beautiful model and a textbook that he’s offering his fellow Democrats and the whole party to mimic and take, you know, take it all the way to victory in the federal elections.

00:19:33 

And you know, they’re all, they’re all going to drop the ball because in the end they all want to play both sides and they, their true masters are the corporate paymasters. Right?

00:19:42 Richard Eskow

Absolutely. And you know, the other thing it takes to use the Mamdani playbook is courage, which seems to be in short supply.

00:19:52 Sonali Kolhatkar

So yes, I, yeah, I read this wonderful piece in the LA Progressive recently about why so many voters may Mamdani had the. He was one of the few candidates in the country who won an election by winning in equal measure men’s votes and women’s votes. This is hard to do. And it was because he adopts what one writer analyzed as psychological androgyny.

00:20:19 

The tough but tender politician who appeals to men and women by being tough and tender at the same time. And I just thought that was so powerful because it’s also authentic. He’s not just like trying to be somebody people want him to be. He’s being himself. And people love that.

00:20:38 Richard Eskow

It’s like, and I’ll let you go. But it’s psychological androgyny that’s fascinating. It reminds me of the very old school belief of what it takes to be a real young man. Quote, yeah, used to be, you know, tough but tender. Used to be, you know, you’ll fight to defend your family, but you love your kids, you, you love your wife, whatever.

00:21:02 

You know, you’re good to animals. You know, this is, you know that.

00:21:07 Sonali Kolhatkar

Not that we’re calling for a patriarchal, you know, old school.

00:21:11 Richard Eskow

No, no, no, no.

00:21:11 Sonali Kolhatkar

But at the same time, I know what you’re saying. I’m just saying real strength lies in love. Love. Right, right. Lives and lies in being like expressing and, and acting out of love. That’s, that’s.

00:21:23 Richard Eskow

And just to be clear, what I’m saying is that if you’re trying to appeal to voters who hold that view.

00:21:28 Sonali Kolhatkar

Sure.

00:21:29 Richard Eskow

Your traditional voters. It still works.

00:21:31 Sonali Kolhatkar

It still works. So it’s the way women. It’s the way women run lives. Right. The tough but tender. If you’re so many single moms know exactly how to, how, how to run a family like that. Right. So. But yeah, there’s next week maybe we can talk about Gavin Newsom who is opposing a California billionaires wealth tax.

00:21:56 Richard Eskow

I was thinking about that as we talked the phrase too clever by half.

00:22:03 Sonali Kolhatkar

Oh yeah.