“ICE Is Too Bloated, Politicized, and Corrupt to Continue” 

The actions of ICE continue to horrify decent Americans. Committing unprovoked killings, abducting children, abusing inmates (many of whom are legal residents and even U.S. citizens), the domestic immigration enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security appears beyond redemption, not only to many Democrats but many Americans. Voters and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities that have felt the agency’s wrath are calling to abolish ICE. Beyond the major media stories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s deaths, 42 people have died in ICE custody since Donald Trump returned to the White House, including 19-year-old Royer Perez-Jimenez. With the agency scaling back its operations in the Twin Cities, but also opening offices in other urban areas, and preparing to house thousands of inmates in repurposed warehouses, it seemed a good time to talk to someone who knows budgeting and has thoughts on what to do going forward.  

Mike Lofgren, a former Republican Congressional aide who has since denounced the party as a “nihilistic death cult,” dismisses political and policy arguments against the abolition of ICE. From 1995 to 2004, Lofgren was a GOP budget analyst for national security on the House Budget Committee staff, and from 2005 until his retirement in 2011, he was the chief analyst for military spending on the Senate Budget Committee. His position gave him a front-row seat to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and its most controversial subcomponent, ICE. He draws on that experience to make his argument for abolition.  

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity. 

DM: You were working in the U.S. House of Representatives when the federal government created the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Why should Congress abolish ICE? 

ML: To understand why ICE needs to be abolished, you need to recognize that the country is in the process of being overtaken by an authoritarian dictatorship. President Biden tried to turn the page, but that did not work. The party has to grapple with the damage Trump has done to this country, and they cannot accomplish that without getting rid of ICE.  

That does not mean abandoning immigration enforcement—there will, of course, be a successor agency. But ICE is too bloated, politicized, and corrupt to continue. Saying Democrats could reform ICE would be like the Allies saying, “Well, if we just reform the Gestapo, they can continue law enforcement in Germany.” To some degree, this is a symbolic change, but symbols matter.  

DM: When did those problems begin? How does your knowledge of the formation of ICE influence your position? 

ML: The problems started at the very beginning. This is not an agency that has been around forever. It was birthed in a lie after 9/11—the lie being that the intelligence agencies didn’t give President George W. Bush enough information. In fact, he had a lot of warnings, most notably the August 6th daily briefing on how Bin Laden was determined to strike the United States, which he ignored while on vacation. So, he claimed the bureaucracy failed him, rather than admitting that he failed the nation. He pushed responsibility down, and Congress, looking to empire-building, decided that we had to have a Department of Homeland Security.  

Why did they do this? Because it creates a lot of bureaucratic log rolling and allows the agency to become a dumping ground for political appointees, like Michael Brown, the FEMA director during Hurricane Katrina, whose leadership was so catastrophic that he became a national punchline. ICE was formed alongside Customs and Border Protection, creating two overlapping agencies. Before 9/11, we had the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol; they should have been consolidated into a single agency. Instead, we got two more agencies, both dysfunctional. A colleague of mine transferred from the Department of Transportation to DHS in those early years and stayed three years before leaving in disgust. He said, “DHS was dysfunctional on day one. It never got better. And ICE was the worst part of the department.”  

If you fast forward, ICE had 10,000 employees at the beginning of Trump’s current term. It now has 22,000. The agency has cut training in half, dropping lessons and exercises on how to remain within the Constitution and not use excessive force while enforcing the law. They are offering $50,000 signing bonuses. There are no qualifications other than political support for Trump. You cannot get a job unless you support Trump. It isn’t a matter of getting rid of a “few bad apples.” By now, probably 80 percent of the barrel is spoiled.  

Another reason to abolish ICE, rather than reform it, is the federal government’s employment laws. If you abolish an agency, the positions and, therefore, the people in those positions go away. If it remains an agency called “ICE,” those positions don’t automatically go away.  

DM: For people horrified by the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, why isn’t that solely a Trump administration problem?  

ML: ICE always tended to hire “tough guys” who didn’t play by the rules. There have been many corruption cases of agents taking bribes from drug traffickers. It simply wasn’t an effective agency even before Trump. Unless they abolish ICE, these same people will be in a Democratic administration. They have to bulldoze the place and start over. 

DM: Ok. Democrats create an agency, “The Benevolent Welcoming Committee.” What is to stop the Benevolent Welcoming Committee from replicating the offenses of ICE, but with a human face? 

ML: Well, that would apply to any agency. If you take that argument seriously, it becomes an argument for not doing anything.  

DM: Let’s imagine that we’ve dismantled ICE and DHS. How do we enforce immigration laws? 

ML: There must be a plan to transition enforcement to competent people who follow the Constitution. Democrats should have a version of Project 2025 so they know what to do and, if they regain power, can do it immediately.  

Let me add this point: Keeping 22,000 heavily armed, unvetted people anywhere—especially in Washington, D.C.—with real-time intelligence about the president and the presidential line of succession is deeply problematic in a constitutional republic.  

DM: ICE is expanding, opening offices in urban areas from coast to coast. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has plans to repurpose warehouses for mass detention. Abolishing ICE ends all of that? 

ML: People must realize it is getting bigger and more extensive than any immigration law enforcement agency. It is becoming like Putin’s FSB, an all-purpose secret police. Agents wear masks. They don’t abide by the Constitution. They believe they have the right to enter anyone’s home with so-called “administrative warrants,” rather than warrants issued by a judge. That is, by definition, a secret police force. That issue, even more than immigration laws and the necessity of enforcement, is the overriding issue. The maintenance of our democracy is the overriding issue.  

DM: To shift to the politics surrounding the discussion, why is this the issue on which Democrats should become more aggressive? 

ML: Well, it’s not the only issue, but it is a major one, unless you believe that the American people don’t care about democracy. If that’s the case, we might as well all give up. With political independents and low-information voters, it is incumbent upon Democrats to inform people who might think that ICE merely enforces the law that it has gotten much bigger than that. ICE has issued subpoenas to social media companies seeking the names, addresses, and phone numbers of people who have criticized ICE on social media. That is another perfect example of a secret police force. Democrats need to educate people that this isn’t only about immigrant rights, but about all our rights. 

DM: After witnessing the murder of American citizens, the abduction of children, and myriad horrific offenses, isn’t there also a moral imperative to demand the abolition of the agency? 

ML: That’s the entire thrust of my argument. Why is that such a hard argument to make? If you cannot convince the American people that abducting kindergartners is bad, you might as well give up. 

DM: Let’s presuppose that the Democrats convince the vast majority to abolish ICE. What is the process for achieving that end? 

ML: It would start in Congress. If Congress created this monster, it can uncreate it. As far as the functional parts of the DHS, I have always argued, and some of my colleagues who worked there agree, that it is less than the sum of its parts. Everything that the subcomponents do, they did better under previous agencies. So, you could restore many functions to their previous departments.  

DM: Couldn’t you also make an argument that ICE is making America less safe? It undermines the purported purpose of “homeland security.” 

ML: Absolutely. An acquaintance of mine worked at DHS and then with a DHS contractor. He’s very savvy on cybersecurity. Always chaotic, it has gotten worse under Trump. The word I hear from veterans in D.C. is that DHS just isn’t doing the job. My source in DHS in the early 2000s, as the agency was being built up, learned that the agency defined its mission as aiding recovery from terrorist incidents, but not preventing them. Also, remember that Bush, not just Elon Musk, wanted to get rid of FEMA. That would mean DHS couldn’t even perform its self-defined mission. 

DM: What about the argument that, if Democrats succeed in the midterms, they won’t have a strong numerical advantage, so this just isn’t going to happen. Why waste time calling for it? 

ML: Republicans have accomplished a lot that was unthinkable 20 years ago. They put ideas out there and relentlessly pushed them until people were conditioned to accept them. This notion that you sit around a table and say, “Oh, never mind, that’s not going to work, so let’s forget about it,” is not the attitude by which you save a democracy. ICE is pretty unpopular. Republicans may love it, but Democrats and independents do not. If you can’t deal with ICE, what can you do? How about reversing the Trump tax cuts? That’s probably too hard to do as well. How about reversing his tariffs? Is that too hard to do? Restoring the subsidies for the ACA? Is that too hard? 

Democratic operatives should not spend their time searching for the persuadable Republican voter while they dismiss the desires of their own base.  

DM: So many Democratic officials, pollsters, and pundits miss this essential point of political strategy. Why is it important for a political party to take action to inspire and energize the base? 

ML: Democrats managed to win in 2025 in the off-year elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and elsewhere, even with a fairly unenergized base. Voters were not happy with Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, but they were horrified by Trump and voted accordingly. It’s going to be rougher in 2026 because the Republicans didn’t see 2025 coming. Now, they are prepared. Energizing the Democratic base is crucial. How many Republicans do you think you will persuade after three straight elections with Trump on the ballot? His vote totals increased each time. You have to energize your base, because Democrats tend not to crawl over broken glass to vote the way that evangelical Christians vote Republican.  

Trying to nuance this crucial issue, as in “we’re for ICE, just a different version of it,” allows for the lie to persist that there is no difference between the two parties.  

DM: There is also the measured political reality that Republicans appeal to voters with little policy knowledge, because they recognize a forcefulness in Trump, albeit a bizarre and destructive forcefulness. 

ML: Right, and a kind of dynamism. It may be an evil dynamism, but it isn’t the wishy-washy, “Well, we’ll have to analyze and focus-group this position.” Most voters don’t pay attention when politicians talk about “policy reform.” But saying “we’re going to get rid of something,” which stirs up controversy, gets their attention. And above all, Democrats have to be seen fighting for their voters, and they have to be seen taking a scalp or two. 

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