The Border, a Battlefield of Empire: Why Abolishing ICE is a Pan-African Necessity

The modern boundary between the United States and the Global South is not merely a line on a map or a jurisdictional limit; it is a live front in a global war. For too long, the discourse surrounding immigration has been trapped in the shallow waters of "policy reform" and "border security." However, for the Pan-African movement and the international working class, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must be understood as something far more sinister: a domestic paramilitary wing of the imperialist project. To call for the abolition of ICE is not a radical demand for administrative change—it is an essential requirement for the dismantling of an empire that views Black and Brown bodies as collateral in its quest for hegemon

The Border as an Extension of Colonialism

The current crisis at the border is often presented as a spontaneous tragedy, but as radical thinkers in the Pan-African tradition have long noted, migration is the inevitable ghost of imperialism. The "environmental warfare" and economic destabilization exported by the United States to Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America create the very displacement that the U.S. then criminalizes at its gates.

When we look at the treatment of Haitian migrants under the Del Rio bridge or the disproportionate detention of Black asylum seekers from Cameroon, Mauritania, and the DRC, we are seeing the "settler-colonial" logic of the 19th century updated for the 21st. The border functions as a laboratory for the "psychopathology of the ruling class." Just as the Israeli state utilizes Gaza as a testing ground for surveillance technology—later sold to the "Epstein-class" billionaires and oppressive regimes globally—the U.S. border serves as a testing ground for the biometric and carceral technologies that eventually find their way into the streets of Lagos, Nairobi, and Harlem.

Why Reform is a Dead End

The liberal consensus often suggests that ICE can be "humanized" through better oversight, specialized training, or the elimination of private contracts. This is a dangerous delusion. ICE was birthed from the Homeland Security Act in the wake of 9/11, designed specifically to bypass traditional legal protections and merge the functions of policing with the mandates of national security.

To speak of "reforming" ICE is akin to speaking of reforming a drone strike; the institution’s very DNA is predicated on the exclusion and dehumanization of the "Other." For Pan-Africanists, the institution represents a modern-day "Catch-Pole" or slave patrol, redirected toward the global African diaspora. The structural purpose of ICE is to maintain a "permanent state of exception" where constitutional rights do not apply. This is why "Abolish ICE" is a prerequisite for Pan-African liberation. You cannot reform a mechanism of empire; you can only dismantle it.

The Failure of the "Progressive" Left

One of the most significant obstacles to the abolitionist movement has been the inadequate and often performative fight coming from the American "progressive" Left. Figures like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) rose to prominence on the back of radical slogans, but their actual legislative records tell a story of capitulation to the "lesser-evil" logic of the Democratic Party.

While AOC famously wept at a detention center fence and ran on a platform to abolish ICE, her trajectory—and that of the "Squad"—has been one of "sheepdogging." These figures have consistently voted for "omnibus" spending bills that include billions of dollars for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE. Their opposition is often relegated to Twitter threads and late-night talk shows, while their votes facilitate the continued funding of the carceral state.

Bernie Sanders, too, has been a disappointment to the abolitionist cause. His brand of "democratic socialism" has historically stopped at the water’s edge. Sanders’s rhetoric often leans on a nationalistic view of the working class, occasionally framing immigration as a threat to domestic wages—a trope that pits the local worker against the international migrant, ignoring the fact that both are exploited by the same global capitalist class. This failure to link the domestic struggle of the American worker to the anti-imperialist struggle of the Global South is what makes their brand of politics "pseudo-socialist." They seek to manage the empire’s decline more kindly, rather than ending the empire itself.

The Pan-African Necessity

For the Pan-Africanist, the abolition of ICE is an act of international solidarity. The "Black Radical Tradition" teaches us that the liberation of Black people in the United States is inextricably linked to the sovereignty of the African continent and its diaspora.

ICE is the domestic enforcement of the "Architecture of Lies" that justifies regime change and economic warfare. When the U.S. imposes unilateral sanctions on nations like Zimbabwe or Venezuela, causing economic collapse, and then uses ICE to deport those fleeing that collapse, it is completing a cycle of imperial violence. By abolishing ICE, we remove the "clean-up crew" of imperialism. We force the empire to face the human consequences of its foreign policy without the cushion of mass deportation.

Furthermore, the abolition movement must address the "Blackmail State" and the "Epstein Class." The private detention industry is a multi-billion dollar enterprise where human beings are treated as "chattel" to be traded and stored for profit. This commodification of Black and Brown life is a direct continuation of the transatlantic slave trade’s logic. The billionaire class, which manages these detention centers, is the same class that pushes for war in West Asia and the exploitation of minerals in the DRC.

A Call for Radical Independence

The path forward requires a total rejection of the two-party system that uses ICE as a political football. We must move beyond the "Architecture of Lies" provided by corporate media and the "Progressive" wing of the Democratic Party.

The struggle to Free Palestine, to protect Iranian sovereignty, and to Abolish ICE is one and the same. It is a struggle for the "Right to Remain" and the "Right to Move"—fundamental human rights that the "Rules-Based International Order" only recognizes when it suits the interests of the powerful.

The border is a battlefield, and the casualties are our brothers and sisters. For the working class, for the Pan-Africanist, and for the true abolitionist, the mission is clear: we must dismantle the walls of empire, starting with the institutions that guard them. Only then can we begin to build a world where the sanctity of life is not determined by a passport, but by our shared humanity.