By Sharon Zhang

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) has come out swinging in favor of abolishing ICE and blocking funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), demanding that Democrats use their leverage to do so after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) released a tepid set of demands for a funding vote in the coming days.

In a short video posted to social media on Wednesday evening, Markey said that Democrats “have the power” to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and must use it.

“We cannot and we must not vote to send a single nickel to this lawless organization,” he said, labelling federal agents as “Trump’s secret police.”

“Right now, Democrats have the power to defund and abolish ICE. We should do it,” Markey went on. “Anyone who supports funding DHS and ICE is supporting the murder of Americans. We can stop this. Not one penny more for the Department of Homeland Security.”

Markey appears to be the first senator to speak out in favor of abolishing ICE amid President Donald Trump’s current immigration raids.

Markey’s remarks came shortly after Schumer released the Senate Democratic caucus’s demands for DHS funding. As it is, the funding effectively helps to triple ICE’s funding with no guardrails to prevent the agency from continuing to carry out Trump’s unconstitutional orders. Despite this, seven House Democrats helped Republicans to pass the bill last week anyway.

On Wednesday afternoon, Schumer said that the Democrats are calling for an end to ICE’s patrols and to obtain warrants for arrests. They are also asking for an establishment of a code of conduct regarding use of force, something the agency already has, and a prohibition on agents wearing masks as well as a mandate for body cameras.

These proposals have been condemned as ineffective. Critics point out that they don’t even include a demand for Trump to remove his agents from Minneapolis, in spite of their recent killings and abductions of children, and don’t try to claw back any of the proposed funding.

The demands are incredibly weak considering the leverage that Democrats have; the administration started maneuvering to “de-escalate” in Minneapolis as a show for Democrats after they said they’d oppose DHS funding earlier this week, one official admitted to Punchbowl this week.

“Chuck Schumer’s legislative demands for DHS funding are so narrow they almost mirror what ICE/CBP have just announced in Minneapolis. Just as Republicans were conceding the need to negotiate, Democrats pre-negotiated themselves into mush,” wrote David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, on social media.

Meanwhile, positions like Markey’s are becoming increasingly popular among the public, even if they are scarcely represented in Congress. Support for abolishing ICE has steadily grown this month after the DHS killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. YouGov found in polling after Pretti’s killing this weekend that 46 percent of Americans support abolishing ICE, while 41 percent are opposed — meaning that more Americans support the idea than oppose it for the first time in recent history.

VIEW ORIGINAL ARTICLE AND VIDEO HERE:https://truthout.org/articles/senator-calls-to-abolish-ice-says-voting-to-fund-dhs-supports-murder/