Every day, we are subjected to escalating demonstrations of ICE’s assaults on our community and our democracy. ICE spent last year unlawfully kidnapping our neighbors off of our streets, from Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk in Somerville, to U.S. citizen and combat veteran George Retes in California. In 2026, ICE has entered a new level of atrocities, most notably in Minneapolis where ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good. ICE agents’ subsequent behavior in Minneapolis has been indistinguishable from a military occupation, with agents in training encouraged to break into residents’ homes without a judicial warrant. This brazen assault on our liberties was recently displayed when ICE pulled U.S. citizen ChongLy Thao—who has no criminal record and has lived in the U.S. for over fifty years—from his home into the snow without giving him a chance to show his identification or even put a shirt on.

While some politicians have advocated for incremental reforms to ICE, such as enhanced training, body cameras, or prohibiting agents from wearing face coverings, the central problem with ICE is its existence. The fact of the matter is that Jonathan Ross killed Renee Good after a decade as an ICE agent, including serving as a firearms instructor. Modified training will not fix an agency where even an instructor will murder a woman for laughing at him. Bodycams would not have stopped Ross, who filmed the entire incident himself and shared it with a right-wing website. Politicians who traffic in aesthetics have zeroed in on (likely unenforceable) attempts to ban ICE agents from wearing masks, but ICE agents’ crimes will not suddenly become acceptable just because we can see their faces.

With ICE agents demonstrating that they will not be restrained by legislation or the Constitution, let alone human decency, we must identify how to reign in this rogue agency. In the short term, our most effective strategy is to cut off what ICE needs for its intrusions upon our liberties. ICE needs funding to pay for agents to terrorize us, unmarked vehicles to throw us in, and detention centers to unjustly imprison us. ICE also thrives on information to seek out our most vulnerable neighbors, whether from tracking their location via license-plate photos or collaboration with local law enforcement agencies. As we take immediate action to protect our communities, we must also recognize that the long-term solution is to dismantle ICE entirely. The last several months have shown that ICE is an irredeemable blight upon our nation, and the time is far overdue for us to set on the path to a future without it.

Photo via Mass 50501 volunteer showing the back of a person holding a sign that reads "ICE OUT NOW". — Photo via Mass 50501 volunteer

While there are numerous factors to be accounted for in developing an effective and humane immigration policy, at this point there is no possible benefit from ICE that outweighs the harm that the agency continues to inflict upon us. When we look beyond our acclimation to our current immigration system, we see that it is absurd to have a federal agency coming into our communities to detain people for no other offense than not having up-to-date papers. Cities and states are perfectly capable of determining the best public safety strategy for their residents, regardless of the immigration status of potential offenders, and both undocumented immigrants and immigrants as a whole commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens. We should focus on measures like improving immigration courts so that people who seek to come here for a better life can smoothly integrate into our society, rather than doubling the number of agents seeking to terrorize our communities.

In an era where it may seem that time has lost all meaning, it can be easy to forget just how short a time in our nation’s history has been disgraced by ICE’s presence. ICE only dates to March 2003. Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You” are both older than ICE. Tobey Maguire began portraying Spiderman before ICE was created, and his silver-screen performance has likely done more for our safety and well-being than ICE has in its entire misbegotten existence. Our nation thrived before ICE, and it will thrive after ICE.

While we recognize dismantling ICE as our ultimate goal, there are measures that we can take right now that will cut off ICE’s access to the funding and information that enable its continued atrocities. Most urgently, Congress is currently negotiating government funding beyond the current continuing resolution, which ends on January 30th, granting Democratic senators a rare moment of leverage to shut down ICE’s reign of terror. Now is the time for Democrats to halt ICE funding, funding that goes to agents to terrorize us and facilities to house those who are kidnapped. Training and bodycams will not reign in the depredations of a rogue agency. Should a budget not be passed, Democrats should be prepared to shut down the government until ICE is withdrawn from our communities. Any government shutdown incurs hardship, but a government that sends secret police into our communities to unlawfully raid our homes, kidnap our neighbors, and shoot innocent people is not a government worth funding.

At the local level, we can also work to cut off ICE’s access to information. One way that we can unwittingly give ICE information is through the use of automated license plate readers, like the cameras operated by companies like Flock Safety. ICE will gladly use any surveillance system that it can access to identify its next victims, so the only way for us to avoid letting ICE track us via license-plate data is to make sure that they have no pathway to access that data at all. You can check out the campaign page here for updates on how to protect our location data from ICE. In addition, Massachusetts can cut off ICE’s access to information by passing the Safe Communities Act to limit our judges’ and police officers’ coordination with ICE so that they can focus on enforcing our state and local laws.

ICE is a disgrace to our nation, and now is the time to fight back. Call your members of congress to demand that they halt funding to ICE and work locally to cut ICE’s access to information via license-plate cameras and local officials.

Call your senators to demand that they halt ICE funding!

The current continuing resolution for government funding runs out on Jan. 30th, giving Democratic Senators leverage over future ICE funding.
Call your senators and ask them to refuse to provide further funding for ICE and to prevent passage of any funding bill containing ICE funding by denying consent and any other necessary procedural measures.
Let them know that you support a government shutdown if that is what is needed to stop ICE and its unlawful attacks on our communities.
You can also share your personal reasons why you want this rogue agency stopped.
You can call Sen. Markey’s Washington D.C. office at 202-224-2742 and Sen. Warren’s Washington D.C. office at 202-224-4543.