NDLON Statement on Momentum to #AbolishICE

Los Angeles, CA – This week, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Mayor Bill De Blasio embraced the national movement to abolish and fully dismantle the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE).

In response Pablo Alvarado, Director of NDLON, issued the following statement:

“History calls upon each one of us to take a stand right now. This burden takes a distinct form for people with privilege and for elected officials who have pledged their support for immigrants. It is now time to move from rhetoric to action at every level of government and in every community.

To witness the atrocities committed by ICE and be complacent is to be complicit in the face of demonstrable human rights violations. We are all accomplices if we do not take concrete actions to dismantle this police force which derives its power from acting in all of our names.

ICE must be abolished, and we all must do our part. While some may feel powerless to achieve this goal until new leaders are elected to the federal government this November, we know it is possible to make progress by kicking ICE out of our states, our towns, and our communities. Policies and laws can be enacted to eject ICE and protect our communities.

Elected officials who have supported immigrant rights have a moral obligation to join the growing abolitionist movement. We must not avert our gaze from what is happening, but we should not be stunned into inaction, and we should not let Democrats, particularly at the state and local level, off the hook. We can and will abolish ICE.”

###