Op-Ed Abolish ICE — And build something better
I published this piece in the Union Leader. You can also it on their website.
Carleigh Beriont: Abolish ICE — and build something better
We were told immigration enforcement would target only convicted criminals. That was a lie.
On Monday, July 13th, a person was shot dead by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Biddeford, Maine. It was not the first act of deadly ICE-related violence this year, or even this month. One death is too many. I stand with the victim's family and community, and I stand for the abolition of ICE.
Abolishing ICE does not mean abolishing immigration enforcement. It means replacing a failed institution with one based on civil rights protections and democratic accountability.
For months, ICE agents have shown up in neighborhoods wearing masks, pulling parents from their children without warning or warrant. Students have been jailed for what they wrote in college newspapers. People have been deported to countries they've never set foot in.
This is not immigration enforcement. It is state-sanctioned violence, and it demands a structural response. We need a new immigration system.
ICE can't be reformed
ICE was created in 2003 in the post-9/11 reorganization that formed the Department of Homeland Security, and from the start it conflated immigration enforcement with national security. This has proven to be both ineffective and dangerous.
When an institution is built to enforce a broken system without due process protections, without meaningful accountability and with a culture that has consistently shielded agents from consequences for misconduct and killing, reform is insufficient. The institution must be replaced.
After the passage of President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," ICE has $85 billion at its disposal. It has a documented history of retaliating against whistleblowers and covering up the deaths of people in its custody. And it has been turned into a political weapon, used to surveil protesters, add citizens to watchlists and kill with impunity.
Congress must act now
Congress must take immediate steps to stop the violence: independent investigations into every death in ICE custody, including the 38 deaths in the past 14 months and Monday's killing in Biddeford; repeal of the Laken Riley Act; a moratorium on new detention contracts; defunding ICE's surveillance and protest-intimidation operations; and no funding without binding accountability requirements, body cameras and enforceable civil rights standards.
Next, Congress must enact structural reforms: a civilian Civil Immigration Enforcement Agency apart from DHS, bound by warrant requirements, a ban on masked agents and an independent Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties reporting to Congress. Genuine criminal enforcement — stopping human trafficking, smuggling and gang violence — belongs to the FBI, DEA and a reconstituted CBP, agencies that already have due-process infrastructure. Finally, immigration courts need real independence, modeled on the U.S. Tax Court, instead of judges who serve at the pleasure of the Attorney General.
A just system
The deeper problem is that there is no "line" for most aspiring immigrants to wait in. A just system means expanding visas where labor demand is real, fixing decades-long family reunification backlogs, restoring asylum and refugee protections and creating a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented people already building lives here.
Here in New Hampshire, people are organizing for change. The coalitions that stopped the proposed Merrimack detention facility, defeated the contract to house ICE detainees in the Rockingham jail and opposed collaboration with ICE in communities like Hampton, where I chair the Select Board, are proof this fight can be won. It's why I join faith leaders and organizers for a monthly Jericho Walk around the Norris Cotton Federal Building in Manchester, and why candidates at every level are coalescing around a shared call for immigration justice this November.
In 2027, a Democratic House majority should move immediately to pass the GRACE Act's refugee floor, the New Way Forward Act's end to mandatory detention and an ICE Accountability Act establishing real oversight — the first steps toward the Civil Immigration Enforcement Agency that I've described above.
This debate has been poisoned for decades by bad faith and the deliberate conflation of immigration with criminality. Guilty or innocent, everyone is entitled to due process. Our democracy's survival depends upon respect for human life and the rule of law.
I'm running for Congress because this level of change requires legislative power and a plan. I support abolishing ICE, but words alone won't do it. A better immigration system must be built, and I intend to go to Washington to help build it.
