My New Boston Globe Article Making Case for Abolishing ICE and Giving the Money to State and Local Police

On August 27, I published an article in The Hill, advocating abolishing ICE and giving the money to state and local police. The Boston Globe asked me to adapt the earlier piece into an article for them. That new article was published earlier today. Here is an excerpt:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has a history of horrific abuses, which have gotten worse under the second Trump administration. They include violations of civil liberties, large-scale racial profiling, and terrible conditions for detainees. Those abuses are of special interest to the Boston area, given the region’s large immigrant population and that the administration is apparently planning a surge in ICE activity in Boston.

ICE’s cruel actions have made the agency highly unpopular, with recent polls showing large majorities disapprove of it. But most Democrats, including most Massachusetts leaders, still shy away from calling for its abolition, likely for fear of being seen as “soft on crime” or against law enforcement. But there is a way out of this dilemma: Advocate for abolishing ICE and giving the money to state and local police.

In the new article, I took the opportunity to address some objections left-liberals (like, perhaps, many Globe readers) might have, such as this one:

Many studies show that putting more police on the streets can reduce crime. Indeed, diverting law enforcement resources from deportation to ordinary policing can help focus more effort on the violent and property crimes that most harm residents of high-crime areas. Deportation efforts, by contrast, target a population with a lower crime rate than others…..

Some progressives might nonetheless oppose transferring funds to conventional police. The latter, too, sometimes engage in abusive practices, including racial profiling. I share some of these concerns and am a longtime advocate of increased efforts to combat racial profiling. But comparative assessment is vital here. Despite flaws, conventional police are much better in these respects than ICE, with its ingrained culture of brutality and massive profiling. They have stronger incentives to maintain good relations with local communities and don’t need to rely on racial profiling nearly as much to find suspects. A shift of law enforcement funds from ICE to conventional police would mean a major overall reduction in racial profiling and other abuses.

Survey data show most Black people (the biggest victims of profiling) actually want to maintain or increase police presence in their neighborhoods, even as they (understandably) abhor racial profiling. Grant money transferred from ICE could potentially be conditioned on stronger efforts to curb racial profiling and related abuses, thereby further reducing the problem. It should also be conditioned on spending it on combatting violent and property crime, and structured in a way that prevents excessive dependence on federal funding.

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