Amnesty International calls for ICE abolition: "We need to start over"

Washington DC – Amnesty International called for the abolition of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is tasked with leading Donald Trump's anti-immigrant crackdown, in a report released Thursday.

Demonstrators in San Francisco, California, demand ICE be shuttered in a protest in July 2026. Amnesty International has called for the agency's abolition in a new report published Thursday.
Demonstrators in San Francisco, California, demand ICE be shuttered in a protest in July 2026. Amnesty International has called for the agency's abolition in a new report published Thursday.  © BENJAMIN FANJOY / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP

Thursday's report, titled We Had Whistles, They Had Guns, documents widespread human rights violations during ICE's large-scale operations, the human rights watchdog said.

Its release comes less than a week after a Venezuelan migrant, Wilber Garces Perez, was shot and wounded by an ICE agent in Austin, Texas, reigniting anger over the agency's activities.

In January, the deaths of two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, both shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, sparked outrage across the country.

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"Masked and armed federal agents attacking people in the streets with impunity doesn't make our communities safer – it puts everyone in danger," Nadia Daar, director of Amnesty International USA, warned in the report.

The report is based on more than 150 testimonies gathered between March and June in four major cities where ICE concentrated its activities, Amnesty said.

"ICE is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed," Daar wrote. "For the U.S. government to have an immigration enforcement system that complies with international human rights law and standards, ICE needs to be abolished and we need to start over."

Amnesty said its research demonstrates that the Trump administration is "implementing a system of mass detention and deportation fueled by racist, xenophobic, and false rhetoric, with the aim of detaining and deporting as many migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees as possible from the United States."

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Cover photo: BENJAMIN FANJOY / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP

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