Ryan challenger calls for abolishing ICE

Randy Bryce, a Democrat running to unseat Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), is calling for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished.

The call to do away with ICE was announced Monday during a campaign event at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, a spokeswoman for Bryce’s campaign said.

“Rather than deporting immigrants who pose a risk to the nation’s security, ICE has grown power hungry, sucking up more and more federal resources and directing them towards the deportation of children and families, who are otherwise completely law-abiding,” reads a portion of Bryce’s platform on his website.

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Part of that platform calls for Congress to assess which existing agency could best take control of immigration and customs enforcement.

ICE, which falls under the Department Homeland Security, was established under former President George W. Bush in 2003 and took over responsibilities previously handled by several separate agencies.

Bryce’s platform also calls for Congress to pass “clean” legislation extending protections to beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, oppose efforts to curb legal immigration and fight President Trump’s executive order barring citizens of eight countries from traveling to the U.S.

The long-shot Ryan challenger unveiled his immigration platform at a time when Trump has returned to a harder-line approach to immigration that characterized his presidential campaign and early days in office.

Trump abruptly announced on Sunday that he had closed the door on negotiating a deal with Congress on DACA, which he announced in September he would end. The program temporarily shielded from deportation certain young immigrations brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

On Monday, Trump also stepped up calls for Mexico to detain more people crossing illegally through its border with the U.S. and warned of a “caravan” of migrants heading to the U.S. from Central America.

He also announced Tuesday that he plans to send U.S. troops to the country’s southern border — a move that would signal a dramatic escalation of the U.S. presence in the area.