Actress-turned-gubernatorial challenger Cynthia Nixon branded the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency a ‘terrorist organization’ during a powerful speech on Thursday when she called for it to be abolished.
The former Sex and the City star was speaking at St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist Church, on the Upper West Side, where an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant Debora Vasquez-Barrios, a mother of two US-born kids, is taking shelter after being threatened with deportation.
‘ICE has strayed so far away from its mission. It is supposed to be here to keep Americans safe but what it has turned into, frankly, is a terrorist organization of its own that is terrorizing people who are coming to this country,’ she said, according to NY1 News.
Actress-turned-gubernatorial challenger Cynthia Nixon branded the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency a ‘terrorist organization’ (pictured speaking in New York on June 18)
Nixon later doubled down on her remarks, tweeting: ‘ICE is a terrorist organization, and its egomaniacal leader is Donald Trump’
Nixon later doubled down on her remarks, tweeting: ‘ICE is a terrorist organization, and its egomaniacal leader is Donald Trump.’
She also urged supporters to join her petition to abolish the agency.
Earlier that day, Nixon had appeared on ABC’s ‘The View’ where she called for an end to ICE.
‘I think we need to abolish ICE,’ she said. ‘That seems really clear. They have strayed so far from the interests of the American people and the interests of humanity.’
Nixon was speaking after the news was filled with stories of families being ripped apart by ICE agents at the border, following Donald Trump’s zero tolerance policy – which meant that all immigrants entering the country illegally, including asylum seekers, were criminally prosecuted.
The policy saw thousands of children taken from their parents and placed in detention centers as the law dictates that kids cannot be held in prison for more than a short time. Trump has since reversed some of these changes.
Earlier that day, Nixon had appeared on ABC’s ‘The View’ where she called for an end to ICE
Incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that he doesn’t favor abolishing the agency
However, he did announce plans to file a multi-agency lawsuit against the Trump administration for ‘violating the Constitutional rights of immigrant children and their families’
The ‘Sex and the City’ actress is challenging incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination for New York governor.
Cuomo has said that he doesn’t favor abolishing the agency.
However, he did announce plans to file a multi-agency lawsuit against the Trump administration for ‘violating the Constitutional rights of immigrant children and their families who have been separated at the border.’
The idea of abolishing the agency has become increasingly popular among progressives including Brian Fallon, a former top aide to Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign, and Eric Holder, President Barack Obama’s attorney general.
‘ICE operates as an unaccountable deportation force,’ Fallon tweeted. ‘Dems running in 2020 should campaign on ending the agency in its current form.’
The New York gubernatorial primary is on September 13. Current polls have Nixon trailing Cuomo, 61 percent to 26 percent.
Nixon was speaking after the news was filled with stories of families being ripped apart by ICE agents at the border (A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas)