Donald Trump has made a clear suggestion that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be renamed to National Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or otherwise known as NICE.
His idea is that by giving ICE this fresh rebrand, it will lead immigration enforcement to appear more humane and altruistic. But why make this organization sound compassionate towards others when they are ripping apart families every day?
Trump’s primary goal for this name change is that the media is forced to say “NICE agents” in order to “troll the libs”, but changing the name won’t change the problem. According to the whitehouse.gov, ICE agents have deported over half a million individuals since Trump’s current presidency and are continuing to do so everyday.
Many cases of these deportations split parents and children apart, causing severe emotional harm. Is this what we want in our country? For the children of our country? Kids have come home from school to find a parent or even both of their parents gone, taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, left to take care of themselves. This causes families to lose sources of income and causes intense emotional trauma for the children. Does that sound NICE to you?
This extreme measure causes immense fear, even among immigrants who have not committed crimes and, in some cases, are American citizens. Parents are afraid to go to work, students are worried family members will be gone when they come back from a day of learning, and people are even avoiding places of importance like hospitals or police stations in fear of getting deported.
This is not the “freedom” America has promised immigrants. Students should not have to worry more about their parents getting deported than about their grades in school.
Some supporters of ICE claim that these immigration laws need enforcement and that border security is important. But enforcement can exist without cruelty. There have been at least eight fatal shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement just this year, according to congress.gov, which is unacceptable. Why should people be expected to trust a government agency that harms its own people?
Trump supporters claim that immigrants are causing harm to the economy, but immigrants make up 19% of the workforce and participate in the labor market at significantly higher rates compared to the native-born population. This means that these “illegal aliens” are making our country’s economy better every year.
It is irrational to require immigrants to “just have their forms filled out” when the immigration process takes years or even decades to be processed. Families struggling in war-torn countries don’t have time to wait that long and it’s inhumane to expect them to.
Re-branding this organization would belittle the harm it has caused to our country and insinuate that these violent acts of deportation are morally correct. If leaders want ICE to become more humane, they must change the policies and how they treat immigrants, not just the name.
