Hakeem Jeffries Clashes With Far-Left Journalists As They Press Him to Abolishing ICE

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) clashed with former MSNBC host Joy Reid and progressive author Wajahat Ali as they pressed him to commit to abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should Democrats retake Congress in November. Reid and Ali framed the move as both virtuous and a test of party leadership, while Jeffries stopped short of embracing the demand.

“Now, if I may, I’m going to be a bit blunt here,” Ali said. “Leaders lead, and what we’ve seen is people are impressionable. If you lead on something, people will follow.” 

Ali went on to argue that a significant number of Americans oppose ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), accusing the agencies of racism and of “terrorizing communities.” If Democrats truly want to rein in ICE, he asked, why not go further and abolish the agency altogether?

It seems the wind is behind your back for the first time ever. ICE has a history, CBP has a history of terrorizing Black and Brown communities. People are asking themselves, why are we, our taxpayer dollars, paying for masked, lawless men to terrorize our communities, kidnap people, take children, and kill Americans? So I ask you, and I’m following up to Joy, because I want an answer to this. You said you want to rein in ICE. I’m saying, I’m talking about the long term now, why not lead and say abolish ICE? Because what you’re telling us is you want our taxpayer dollars to pay for a lawless, masked, armed agency to continue terrorizing our cities. And I’m trying to figure out how you, as a leader, can be telling Americans that their taxpayer dollars should be going to ICE.

“I don’t understand anything that you just said,” Jeffries replied.

“I spoke English,” Ali retorted.

“I don’t understand anything that you’ve just said to me,” the House Minority Leader said again. “When I’ve made clear that taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not brutalize or kill them. That’s the whole reason we’re in this fight right now. That’s the whole reason the DHS is getting ready to shut down.”

“So, abolish ICE, you agree with me and Joy,” Ali said. “Abolish ICE.”

“Listen, I’m going to use the language that I want to use. You can use the language that you want to use.”

“My question, though, is more about, you know, if, let’s say, Democrats do get back the majority,” Reid chimed in. “I think some of what people are looking for are what is your project 2027, right? What will Democrats put on the table to say, give us power and we’ll do X? What is on that list? Because I think if you give us power, we’ll abolish ICE was on that list. People would be incredibly enthusiastic about that. If you said right now, we’re going to rein them in, but give us the power, we will get rid of this agency. Is that something that Democrats are willing to coalesce around? Saying we will just end it, period?”

🚨🇺🇸 HAKEEM JEFFRIES LOSES IT WHILE BEING EXTORTED BY THE DEMOCRAT COMMUNIST WING.
Communists Joy Reid and Wajahat Ali demand Hakeem Jeffries abolish ICE.
Communists have hijacked the DNC.
Jeffries is touchy.
He’s being extorted.
Polls show the Dems have gone too far left. pic.twitter.com/vrg10rlwTI

— Patrick Sharp PolitiClips (@ginsengdrumming) February 16, 2026

Rep. Jeffries appeared to distance himself from such a sweeping position, arguing that Democrats have secured recent victories without embracing more extreme proposals and suggesting that doing so may be unnecessary. But while Jeffries may sound cautious for now, he is likely to face mounting pressure to abolish ICE from the party’s progressive wing if Democrats retake Congress in November.

“I think for the last 14 months, we’ve continued to win elections,” he said. “And we’ve won elections for a wide variety of reasons, including in deep red places like Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, as has been the case most recently, as well as in blue states or purple states like New York, like Virginia, and like New Jersey.”

Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.

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