'Abolish ICE' calls get louder with NYC Mayor Mamdani joining chorus

By Maya Davis

 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for dismantling the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, revitalizing the “Abolish ICE” rhetoric that became popular in progressive discourse during the last Trump administration as pushback against the latest deportation efforts intensifies.

 

“I am in support of abolishing ICE,” Mamdani said in an interview on The View on Tuesday. “I am tired of waking up every day and seeing a new image of someone being dragged out of a car, dragged out of their home, dragged out of their life.”

 

Critics of the agency’s aggressive tactics have gained steam in recent weeks after social media videos of immigration raids in Minnesota and the killing of a woman by an ICE agent prompted nationwide protests. Even some Trump backers, such as superstar podcaster Joe Rogan, have questioned the agency’s approach, asking last week “Are we really going to be the Gestapo?”

 

 

Roughly 57 per cent of voters disapprove of ICE’s enforcement of immigration laws, according to a poll conducted this month by Quinnipiac University.

 

Calls to “Abolish ICE” grew during the first Trump administration as the US separated parents and children caught entering the country without authorisation. But the language is controversial among Democrats, who don’t want to appear soft on border enforcement and immigration. The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, advised against using the phrase, saying it’s a policy position that is “both wrong on the merits and at odds with the American public.”  

 

About 46 per cent of Americans support abolishing ICE, according to a poll this month by The Economist/YouGov. In June 2025, only 27 per cent did. Currently, a majority also say that agents shouldn’t be allowed to wear masks when making arrests.

 

Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, stunned New York’s political establishment when he won the Democratic nomination for mayor, besting former Governor Andrew Cuomo in both the primary and the general election. During his historic campaign, he had backed away from his prior calls to “defund” the police. Mamdani called the Minnesota shooting a murder, while members of the Trump administration say it was an act of self defense. 

 

“These ICE raids, they’re cruel, they’re inhumane,” Mamdani said on The View. “There is a way to care about immigration in this city and this country with a sense of humanity. What we are seeing from ICE is not it. We have not seen that from them in a long long time.”

 

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump broadly defended his migrant crackdown though he acknowledged that ICE agents occasionally “make mistakes.”