Politics

Dem Senator Calls For ICE To Be Abolished – Forgets What She Said About Illegal Immigrants In 2009

(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Benny Johnson Columnist, Viral Politics
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Democratic Senator and potential 2020 presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand has called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished.

The far-left position has gained popularity on the fringes of the Democratic Party as the immigration debate heats up in the country. Gillibrand joins New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio who said Friday “ICE’s time has come and gone. We should abolish ICE. We should create something better, something different.”

However, when Gillibrand was just elected to a rather conservative House seat in Upstate New York, she was singing a different tune on illegal immigration. According to a report by the New York Times from 2009, Gillibrand was a hawk on immigration, advocating for strict enforcement of our immigration laws.

The article says:

“During her one term in the House of Representatives, from a largely rural, traditionally Republican district, Kirsten E. Gillibrand was on safe political ground adopting a tough stance against illegal immigration.

Ms. Gillibrand, a Democrat, opposed any sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants, supported deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws, spoke out against Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to allow illegal immigrants to have driver’s licenses and sought to make English the official language of the United States.

But since her appointment by Gov. David A. Paterson last week to fill the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ms. Gillibrand has found herself besieged by immigrant advocates and Democratic colleagues who have cast her as out of step with a majority of the state, with its big cities and sprawling immigrant enclaves.”

How times have changed.