GASS Says: Abolish ICE

This statement is about what the Guild of Autistic Self-Advocate Staff (GASS) thinks about ICE. ICE stands for “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement”. ICE is the part of the government in charge of trying to find undocumented people and make them leave the United States. Undocumented means someone does not have the government papers that say they are allowed to live in the U.S.

GASS wants ICE to be abolished. To abolish something means to end or get rid of it. GASS wants the U.S. government to get rid of ICE.

Immigrants deserve to be safe in their communities. Immigrants deserve to live where they want to live with their families. Everyone needs to respect the rights of immigrants.

But ICE does not keep anyone safe. ICE ignores people’s rights. ICE hurts and kills people. That is why ICE needs to be abolished.

How does ICE hurt people?

In 2025, ICE killed 32 people that we know of. Since ICE was started in 2003, ICE has killed 273 people that we know of. It is possible that ICE killed more people than they tell the public. Most of the people ICE has hurt or killed are immigrants. ICE has also hurt or killed families of immigrants, and other people who help immigrants.

In January 2026, ICE detained 69,000 people. Detaining is when ICE locks someone up while they figure out if that person committed a crime. Being detained is like being put in jail.

Most of the people that ICE detains have never committed a crime. Some people in ICE think it is a crime just to be undocumented. But in the U.S., it is not a crime to be undocumented. And even people who commit crimes have civil rights. No one deserves to be hurt or killed by ICE. ICE ignores immigrants’ civil rights.

ICE has a lot in common with slave patrols. Slave patrols were groups of white Americans. They tried to force freed Africans back into slavery before, during, and after the Civil War. They hurt and killed Black Americans.

Racial profiling is when ICE goes after someone because the person is not white. ICE detains people who they think are undocumented. But ICE usually only goes after people of color. ICE will sometimes detain a person of color who is not undocumented. ICE will say they didn’t realize that person was not undocumented.

ICE has always used racial profiling. It is wrong that ICE does this. It goes against people’s rights. ICE should not ignore the rights of people of color, whether they are undocumented or not.

ICE is more likely to hurt people with disabilities. It is wrong that ICE is more likely to hurt people with disabilities. ICE also specifically hurts autistic people. Some ways that ICE hurt autistic people recently are:

ICE detained an autistic teenager in Houston, without telling his mother.
ICE kept an autistic five year old outside to force her father to come out, so ICE could detain him.
ICE dragged an autistic woman out of her car.

ICE hurts people in ways that give them disabilities, or makes their disabilities worse. For example, sometimes people protest against ICE. ICE disables protestors by hurting their bodies with things like rubber bullets or tear gas.

ICE causes disabilities when they don’t give health care to the people they detain. People can also die from not getting the health care they need. For example, many children detained by ICE died from getting sick. But if they had medicine, the children could have gotten better.

Why is GASS talking about ICE?

It is wrong that many other disability advocacy groups stay silent about ICE. Some disability advocacy groups will say ICE is bad, but don’t say ICE should be abolished. GASS thinks it is important to share all of what we believe.

GASS knows that there is no way to make ICE better or more fair. Giving ICE more training or less money from the government won’t make ICE stop hurting people. That is because ICE’s goal is to get rid of people of color in the U.S. ICE will keep hurting and killing people of color to try and achieve that goal. So GASS believes that ICE must be abolished.

Where can I learn more?

About GASS:

The people ICE has hurt or killed:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/04/ice-2025-deaths-timeline

The people ICE is detaining: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/22/ice-detentions-record-immigration

The similarities between ICE and slave patrols:https://www.blackagendareport.com/continuity-social-control-slave-patrols-policing-ice

ICE’s racial profiling: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/22/us-citizens-racial-profiling-ice

The ways ICE hurts people with disabilities:

The ways ICE hurts children:

The ways ICE hurts autistic people: