A few weeks ago, in the wake of the CBP murder of Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti, a group of OC nurses held a memorial event for him in front of Santa Ana’s Old Courthouse. Eight or nine local Democrat politicians spoke, from Congressmen to school board, and they reacted in a spectrum of ways when pushed by the assembled crowd to pledge to “ABOLISH ICE!” In the video below I’ve compiled most of these politicians’ statements. But a few notes first, three of ’em:

1. “ICE” as shorthand.

As egregious as the actual department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is, as much as it has become the Trump administration’s lawless, masked, unaccountable private army of thugs with their only qualification being their enthusiastic hatred, as much as ICE needs to be abolished, we do use the term “ICE” as shorthand for several agencies that are being abused in a similar way:

• It was actually ICE’s sister agency Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that killed Pretti in cold blood 3 days after ICE killed Renee Good, and CBP has been equally prolific in their lawless violence;
• It was agents of the parent agency DHS (Homeland Security) who shot out our friends’ eyes in Santa Ana and have killed others;
• and Trump actually sent out a masked DEA (Drug Enforcement) agent to arrest a Minnesota journalist at her home at 4am. For covering an ICE protest. Apparently any of Trump’s goons will do.

So when we say “Abolish ICE” we mean “Abolish ALL of that shit.”

2. VOTE! But for fighters.

Remember election season is coming up, and we voters who care about justice need to know WHICH Democrats (or theoretically non-Democrats) will take a sufficiently strong stand against the anti-immigrant / anti-democracy state terrorism we are seeing now on US streets. Democrats who are afraid to say “abolish,” who talk instead about “reforming” these rogue agencies, may as well not be elected and sure won’t inspire much enthusiasm.

Reform? Do we really want these thugs to get the training to kill us better and more efficiently, or to wear bodycams whose footage we won’t see if they don’t want us to? (But which they’ll save and share for their own sadistic amusement.)

3. Fear of Abolition

Why are some Democrats still allergic to “abolition?” Remember recent Democrat Party history: Only a few years ago, resolutions and calls to “Abolish ICE” were the province of what was then considered the leftist fringe of the Party. Considered crazy, irresponsible. Frowned on by the DPOC. Seen as a surefire way for Democrats to lose that elusive “middle of the road” voter, because it might sound like we want no border or immigration enforcement at all (just like “defund the police” takes a little explaining.)

Democrat politicians like Lou Correa and Tom Umberg have made long careers out of appealing to the “middle” and emphasizing their love of law enforcement, and it would be as difficult and unnatural for them to say “abolish ICE” as it would be for you or me to suddenly start break-dancing. But they’d better get with the times if they want to convince anyone they’re any better than voting for Republicans!

Anyway without further ado, here are the speeches from the Jan. 30 Pretti Memorial:

Dave Min has turned out to be a tougher Congressman than many of us expected (although you don’t really know how good someone is until they’re in the majority.) He did go so far as to say, in this video, that ICE must be “done away with,” which pretty much means abolishing them, but why didn’t he deign to use the verb preferred by activists? He spoke of his intention to impeach Kristi Noem, and I liked how he responded to her claim that Pretti had threatened ICE with a deadly weapon: “Yes, an iPhone is a deadly weapon to these people, because it shows the truth, and to them the truth is a deadly weapon!”

Progressive Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez, who is running for assembly, came next, and gave a short speech (at 3:27; I cut out the first half which was about nurses.) Importantly Jessie was the first to mention (having lived through it) that the unconstitutional abuses of ICE did not start under Donald Trump, they go way back to its founding in 2003, and CBP was just as bad (sometimes) before that.

Another thing to note – her conservative Democrat opponent David Penaloza was nowhere to be found, nor anyone else from his law-enforcement-funded right wing of the Party (except Correa and Umberg.)

Second-best speech (besides Sandra DeAnda’s) was from OC Supervisor Vince “Vicente” Sarmiento, the county’s progressive powerhouse (and Jessie’s mentor) who is running for re-election – and Vince came down clearly on the side of ICE ABOLITION. (Not that that’s something the County could ever do.)

Vince’s main points were:

1. Yes we want to support Minneapolis while they’re in the crosshairs, but let’s not forget we’ve been suffering through this shit (not murders yet) for a year RIGHT HERE;
2. Our local economy has been devastated by the Trump/ICE assault on the people of Central OC;
3. Way too many OC politicians (unnamed but we know who they are) are doing nothing and saying nothing about this crisis. Vince says this is their MAIN JOB, to stand up for the victims here in every way they can.
4. And Vince quoted his son Diego, a nursing student at UCSD (whom Zenger painted a portrait of – funny story there) – that yes, what happened to Alex Pretti was an outrage and a tragedy, but “I wish [the same people would have made the same fuss] when 32 other people died in ICE custody last year.” (A number that just keeps growing and growing.)

Here, I’ll make a video of just Vince’s speech:

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LOU.

Lou “Homegrown” Correa is probably our Congressman for life or as long as he wants to be, unless some inspiring and well-funded progressive opponent suddenly appears, but once again that didn’t happen this year. His folksy talk comes around the 10 minute mark above. Lou has been harassed for years by his progressive constituents, both over his steadfast support of ANYTHING Israel does to the Palestinians and his refusal to back abolishing ICE, and he has a characteristic “getting-a-migraine” face that he makes when confronted by the demands of those to his left. (I’ve been studying the guy for 20 years, and try not to antagonize him too much.)

But on THIS evening, he DID go so far as to say he would “NOT FUND ICE AGAIN,” which seems pretty close. We’ll have to keep an eye on him and remind him of that promise.

He does speak in little sentence fragments like an incomplete bullet list, and in repeated platitudes like “This is our finest moment.” He obsesses mainly about “American citizens” having to put up with all this abuse, when it’s really mostly non-citizens, who are equally entitled to the protections of our Constitution.

I happened to catch Lou in a Congressional hearing on TV questioning the head of ICE, mostly talking about their abuses…. but then he spent his last minute or so complaining about how his “good friend Sheriff Barnes” had 300 undocumented criminals in custody that Barnes had called ICE to pick up, and ICE only picked up 250 of ’em – “When are you gonna come get the other 50?” That was a little jarring – ICE sometimes isn’t tough and aggressive enough for Lou? I know he likes to say “immigration is my #1, 2 and 3 issue” which is problematic enough when there are so many others, but it’s also not true – Lou’s #1 issue has always been “LAW AND ORDER.”

Another weird twist that someone needs to ask him about – why is he so close (him and only one other Democrat) to El Salvador’s self-styled dictator, Trump buddy and torture-prison operator Nayid Bukele? Inquiring minds want to know!

(and this wasn’t the end of it)

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After that Tustin councilman / pugilistic Democrat attorney Lee Fink gave a short talk (at 15:08), and it was nice to have someone there from Tustin, forced-stentorian or not. He seemed a little self-conscious about being “white” and pointed out how different he looked from everyone else there. Cool white people don’t make a big deal about being white, or so I understand. I think his point was the Niemoller one, “First they came for…” etc. I’m-a skip the best speech for now, which was Sandra’s, and move on to…

UMBERG.

Funny, Colonel / termed-out State Senator / Equalization candidate / career politician Tom Umberg has always seemed like such a nice guy for a Democrat who is practically a Republican on most big issues. He still runs for office using an ancient photo of himself as a young attorney working with President Reagan. (Right. I mean to the right.)

Appropriately for a Sacramento guy he focused (26:30) on what can be done in our State Capitol to combat Trump/ICE abuses, and he is fighting for a bill that will make Federal agents accountable for their actions in California courts – well that’s something!

Tom didn’t talk long, and signed off in the lamest way possible: “My Spanish is muy malo, but I do know one thing: Si se puede!” CRINGE. But later he did take the time to explain to our friend Fernando DeVeras WHY he doesn’t support abolishing ICE, so we should do him the favor of listening:

I’m sorry, but did you hear an argument there, from Colonel Tom, about why ICE etc. shouldn’t be abolished NOW, or as soon as Democrats have the power? He says “There may come a time for it to be abolished.” Well, how much worse can it get??? (Sorry I asked.) He says “It’s most important that we change the leadership.”

WELL DUH! It’s not one or the fucking other! We have to remove the fascist leadership, dissolve the fascist private army, and subject all of them to the harshest legal consequences. And only vote for those who will do that!

Finally…

SANDRA!

Sandra deAnda, the foul-mouthed madonna of OC’s resistance, I mean the Director of Policy and Legal Strategy at OC Rapid Response, got the most thunderous applause before and after, having earned – every day! – more street cred than any of the politicians with her tireless daily work protecting the community from the fascists. I believe I’ll make a video just out of her speech as well:

The poet Sandra makes herself clear here, especially starting at about 4:10:

“When we say Abolish ICE,
we mean to get rid of it entirely –
not reform, not train officers better,
not replace it with another agency of terror, we must ABOLISH it.
When we say Abolish ICE, it means…
an end to the deceit, the collaboration,
the partnerships that local agencies maintain with ICE even as they deny it.
When we say Abolish ICE,
it means migration will not be criminalized.
It means families will never again be separated by
any cage or detention center…
Cages always beget more cages.
When we say Abolish ICE,
it also means the clarity that we have gained on our streets about
state violence, displacement, and the right to a home,
must bring us closer in our compassion to all struggles for liberation,
including that of the Palestinian people.
Our fight for justice here is woven into a
global fight against injustice everywhere.
When we say Abolish ICE,
it means that our local budgets, our city and county budgets,
finally reflect the needs of our communities.
Budgets are moral documents which ask a fundamental moral question:
WHOSE LIVES ARE DEEMED WORTH INVESTMENT?
We demand an answer that invests
in health, in housing, in education, and in care.
When we say Abolish ICE,
after all of this is over, and I know it will be over,
there will be longstanding transformative policies that center
our most vulnerable communities.
When we say Abolish ICE
it means never again forcing our communities back into the shadows
when they need to eat, when they want to feel joy,
when they want to simply feel the warmth of the sun.
We fight for that sun and we fight for that light.
To make room for what must be built,
and as we have seen, can only be built by us.
In its absence we will create something life-affirming,
something rooted in care, in community, in growth, in beauty,
a system that protects and nurtures
rather than incarcerates and destroys.”

Yeah. All that. Also, as I’ve said, once we’ve destroyed MAGA and ICE, we will have finished off the last throes of White Supremacy in America.

(coming – my video)