The Democratic Party now has two officially approved answers to one of its most divisive immigration questions: fix Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or eliminate it altogether.

At a Democratic National Committee meeting in Austin, Texas, delegates passed competing resolutions that offered sharply different visions of the agency’s future. One called for “concrete reforms,” including measures such as body cameras and a ban on masked agents during operations. The other urged Congress “to craft legislation abolishing ICE” and restricting funding for the Department of Homeland Security.¹

The votes exposed a familiar tension within the party. Reform advocates frame ICE as an institution that can be constrained through oversight and operational rules. Abolition supporters argue that the agency’s underlying structure is inseparable from detention and deportation practices they view as abusive. Their proposal would end contracts with private prison companies and close detention facilities, while pointing to the dissolution of ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, as precedent.¹

The resolutions therefore share a criticism of current immigration enforcement but diverge over whether the problem is the agency’s conduct or its existence. That distinction reflects the growing influence of socialist and activist members, particularly as Democrats prepare for the November midterm elections.¹

DNC Chair Ken Martin sought to limit the political fallout, saying the votes “don’t set the party’s platform.”¹ Still, approving both measures allows competing factions to claim a formal victory—and leaves candidates to explain which version of the party’s immigration agenda they actually support.