The back-and-forth over ICE went from barely noticed to full-blown public hatred, and a New Jersey Democrat’s recent comments about “eliminating” the agency made that shift plain. This piece looks at how anti-ICE rhetoric escalated, why that matters for law enforcement and public safety, and how reckless talk feeds real-world violence. It highlights a specific quote from Highland Park Councilman Philip George and connects it to broader patterns of hostility toward federal officers. The tone here is critical and straightforward about consequences.
There was a time when most Americans didn’t know much about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the agency mostly operated out of the public eye. Over the last decade ICE moved into the spotlight as immigration debates heated up, and some on the Left started treating the agency like a villain rather than a law enforcement arm. That shift didn’t happen on its own; activists, media and some politicians changed the frame and the language they used toward agents on the ground.
Once the rhetoric shifted, tactics followed. Employees of ICE have been doxxed, harassed and sometimes physically threatened while doing their jobs, and those threats don’t evaporate just because someone calls for defunding or dismantling the agency. When public figures use extreme language, it lowers the bar for followers who take it literally, and it becomes easier for fringe actors to justify attacks. This isn’t abstract; it produces real danger for officers and real chaos at detention facilities.
We’ve gone from ‘What’s ICE’ to removing them, which is no different than killing off invasive species or Nazis. That’s what a New Jersey Democrat and Highland Park Councilman Philip George recently said.
“I wish it was as easy to eliminate an invasive species like ICE as it was to eliminate bamboo,” said George. And he later said ICE is like the Brownshirts from Nazi Germany. Those lines aren’t clever political hyperbole; they draw a straight line from policy disagreement to dehumanizing an entire federal workforce.
Calling an agency a scourge of the nation is more than rhetorical flourish when elected officials say it aloud and on the record. It signals to a constituency that violence or eradication is a reasonable response, and that normal democratic debate is unnecessary. That kind of talk is lazy politics and dangerous politics, because it replaces policy proposals with theatrical moral condemnation.
We also saw how this escalation plays out on the street. There was an attack on an ICE detention facility in Dallas, Texas, that left people dead, and violent incidents like that don’t happen in a vacuum. The Dallas episode resulted in two illegals being murdered while being processed, and it exposed how violent rhetoric can move from social media into action. When leaders normalize extreme metaphors, they contribute to an atmosphere where deranged actors feel validated.
People who want reform can push for changes through legislation or oversight, not through calls that amount to eradication. Real conservatives favor secure borders and accountable enforcement, and we expect law enforcement to be treated with the same basic respect any public servant deserves. Demonizing an agency that enforces federal law undermines safety and encourages lawlessness in the name of a cause.
Philip George’s remarks are a window into a larger problem: reducing complex policy debates to slogans about extermination or historical analogies does nothing to solve the underlying issues. It cheapens the moral seriousness of comparisons to historical atrocities and it strips away the policy tools necessary for meaningful reform. If you want a change in how immigration is handled, do the hard work of legislation and oversight, not the cheap work of dehumanizing opponents.
These are the people we’re sharing our country with, frankly, I’d like to deport George. That impulse is raw and emotional, and it comes from watching public servants be turned into punchlines or monsters. Lawmakers should aim to cool this rhetoric, not add fuel to it, because the stakes include officers’ safety and public order.
