Democrats have figured out how to talk about the border. They still haven’t reached a consensus on ICE.
In battlegrounds across the country, moderate and progressive Democrats alike are calling for a secure border and admitting the Biden administration’s policy there led to political backlash in 2024. But with less than three months until Election Day, they still aren’t on the same page in how far to go in reining in Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with some high-profile candidates pushing reforms, and others calling to dissolve the agency altogether.
Many in the party see an opening: Half of Americans view President Donald Trump’s deportation push as too aggressive. But some Democrats are starting to worry that going too far on ICE could again kneecap their electoral chances in key battlegrounds now and in the future.
“The party is still struggling to get its footing on this issue and talk to voters about this,” said Daniel Delgado, a senior career Department of Homeland Security official who left the department after Trump took office in 2025 and now works as a senior fellow at the center-left Searchlight Institute think tank in Washington. “Trump’s actions are pushing people to adopt a more extreme position, but reform is what’s sticking with voters in the middle.”
Democratic candidates are pulled between a fired-up base that wants to see ICE abolished or dramatically reined in, and an undecided voter bloc that’s much less likely to support drastic measures — all while continuing to distance themselves from the Biden administration’s border policies that become political kryptonite for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 race.
A new POLITICO Poll — conducted by Public First between Aug. 8 to 12 — found that just 21 percent of undecided midterm voters say they support abolishing ICE, while 51 percent of self-described moderate Democrats and 67 percent of progressive Democrats say they do.
Those findings track with other polling this year from Navigator Research and NBC News/SurveyMonkey that found Democrats are much more likely than independents to support abolishing ICE, though support for full abolition falls across all groups when respondents are given the option to “reform” the agency.
“A Democratic primary electorate represents less than 25 percent of general election voters,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, a former Bernie Sanders campaign veteran now advising Texas state Rep. James Talarico’s Senate campaign and numerous other candidates this cycle. “The electorate is really pissed, and the Democratic electorate has been very energized, but also these are different electorates from state-to-state.”
Battleground candidates running in border states like Arizona and Texas are calling for ICE officers to be held accountable and guardrails to be installed for the agency — like Talarico, who wants ICE to focus on violent criminals and be banned from using face coverings. Meanwhile, progressive nominees in key Senate contests in Maine and Michigan say the agency is beyond saving, and have used the potent catchphrase “abolish ICE.”
The intraparty divide was on display in Austin last weekend, where Democratic National Committee members could not reach a consensus on whether ICE should be abolished or reformed, eventually approving dueling resolutions that called for both.
That disunity comes as Democrats’ 2028 path to the White House will run straight through two early primary states with significant Hispanic populations — Nevada and border-state New Mexico — all but guaranteeing that immigration enforcement will be a central point of contention.
Immigration enforcement is an issue where Democrats in 2024 “really missed the opportunity to be who we are: smart, fair, and can deliver aggressively through Congress the things that really make a difference. And we couldn’t say it. We didn’t deal with it,” said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has called for more accountability regarding ICE but argues abolishing it is not a winning message. “Shame on us then. We better not make these mistakes again — now, in ’26, in the midterms, and certainly not in 28.”
Some of the party’s battleground Senate nominees, even as they support securing the border, see a path to victory with an abolish-ICE message.
Troy Jackson, Democrats’ nominee in Maine, called to eliminate the agency in response to a federal immigration agent killing a man in the state in July and has used the incident to hammer his opponent, GOP Sen. Susan Collins, for voting to further fund ICE.
And Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has called to abolish ICE and likened the agency’s hardline tactics to “normalizing paramilitary force.”
“There’s no question we need a safe, secure southern border. And there’s also no question that we have a responsibility to enforce immigration policy, but to do that in a way that does not supersede the Constitution itself,” El-Sayed said in an interview.
But he also acknowledged “different communities” around the country “are going to think differently about these things.”
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee for Senate, has avoided explicitly calling to abolish ICE, but has tiptoed up to the line: “We need to rip ICE apart,” she said in her primary-night victory speech. She won a hard-fought primary in Minnesota’s Senate race by castigating her Democratic rival’s votes with Republicans on a pair of immigration-related measures. She opened her general-election clash against Michele Tafoya by accusing the Republican of supporting the Trump administration’s violent tactics in her state.
Border-state Democrats sound different.
Moderate Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who currently sits as ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, frequently tells voters during stump speeches that he will chair the subcommittee should Democrats retake control of the House — and he’ll use that position to push reforms in the next DHS funding bill, like mandatory use of body cameras, requiring judicial warrants before entering a home or worksite, and reinstalling guidance on avoiding enforcement in sensitive areas like churches and hospitals.
“Let me just say this: I don’t believe in abolishing ICE. I don’t believe in defunding the police. There’s a role for them,” he told reporters last month after meeting with Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, a nun detained by ICE while walking to Sunday Mass. “But they have to have the right safeguards. What ICE is doing right now is not right. It is not correct.”
The South Texas Democrats pay little heed to the loudest voices in the party calling to abolish ICE. “I personally don’t follow what national Democrats are saying on this,” said Abel Prado, the campaign manager for Bobby Pulido, the Democratic nominee in Texas’ 15th District.
Some other candidates are altering their message now, too. William Lawrence, the Sunshine Movement co-founder who won the Democratic primary in Michigan’s swingy 7th District, called in January to abolish ICE. But he sidestepped when POLITICO asked this week if that was still his position.
“I don’t care what our immigration enforcement agency is called,” Lawrence said in a statement. “What I care about is immigration policy that adheres to the Constitution and lives up to our country’s highest values.”
Frank Sharry, a longtime Democratic immigration activist, said Democrats would be wise to avoid the phrase.
“I don’t think that ‘abolish ICE’ gets you much more than a little bit of play in a primary and a round of applause in the blue bubble,” said Sharry, a senior fellow at Third Way who advised both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris during their 2024 campaigns on immigration policy. “Democratic candidates who want to win the seats that are going to deliver a majority of the House and the Senate, and then the White House in 2028, would be wise to steer clear of a rally slogan.”
