In recent years, as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency’s (“ICE”) brutal tactics have devasted communities across the nation, a growing chorus of activists and policymakers have begun calling for the agency to be abolished. Abolish ICE advocates have made a compelling case for the irredeemable deficiencies of ICE; they have exposed the core injustices that lay at the heart of our current enforcement scheme, and they have proposed specific and thoughtful changes that are both defensible and achievable. However, these changes tend to focus on a negative vision of what we need to eliminate in our current enforcement scheme. Missing from the public discourse is an affirmative vision for the mechanics of a just and humane immigration enforcement system—one that does not rely on detention or mass deportation but is nevertheless realistic and effective. This void has left the movement open to dismissive attacks and has meant that politicians rather than impacted communities have been left to answer the question: what comes after ICE? Their answers to date have been insufficient and sometimes at odds with the movement’s core goals. Drawing on lessons from our own and other nation’s past immigration enforcement schemes, on the enforcement mechanisms employed by other federal agencies, and on interviews with leaders of the Abolish ICE movement, I propose a new paradigm for immigration enforcement. My proposal is consistent with the movement’s goal to not just eliminate ICE but to create a real and workable immigration enforcement scheme that does not rely on detention, mass deportation, or a dedicated immigration police force at all.
