AOC fundraises on trying to abolish ICE amid Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration

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Republicans are ripping progressive New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for renewing her call to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a recent fundraising email. 

"I believe that ICE, an agency that was just formed in 2003 during the Patriot Act era, is a rogue agency that should not exist," Ocasio-Cortez said in a fundraising email obtained by Fox News Digital. 

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), House Republicans' campaign arm, criticized the potential 2028 presidential candidate in an X post for fundraising on wanting to abolish ICE, a progressive rallying cry that rejects President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. 

"House Democrat Minority Leader AOC is doubling down on their party's most extreme, unhinged agenda, while the rest of her party is bending their knee to the radical wing. At this rate, the Democrat platform in 2026 will be a fever dream of defunding the police, wide open borders, and far-left hellscapes," NRCC Spokesman Mike Marinella told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

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"Why are you considered to be extreme?" Ocasio-Cortez asked in the fundraising email. It's a strategy often deployed by the progressive New Yorker, according to a Fox News Digital review of Ocasio-Cortez's campaign emails. 

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Ocasio-Cortez says she is considered "extreme" because she supports Medicare for All, champions the Green New Deal, challenges Democratic Party leadership, believes in "democratic socialism," is funded by small-dollar donations and believes ICE should "not exist."

"Pathetic, yet predictable from AOC," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital. "This kind of demonization of ICE officers has led to our officers facing a 413% increase in assaults. While bottom-barrel politicians like AOC fight to protect criminal illegal aliens, our ICE officers will continue putting their lives and safety on the line to arrest murderers, kidnappers, and pedophiles that were let into our country by the Biden Administration's open border policies."

"AOC, Democrat Party leader, calls for abolishing ICE," White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Meanwhile, the brave men and women of ICE get dangerous criminal illegal immigrants off our streets and protect American citizens. Why does AOC want to stop that?"

The potential 2028 candidate was at the forefront of the "abolish ICE" movement, a rejection of Trump's immigration policies in his first administration, during her 2018 congressional campaign when she unseated longtime Democrat incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley. 

While older, moderate Democrats haven't been as vocal about abolishing ICE, another young progressive, who has faced heat within his party for a plan to primary challenge older Democratic incumbents in safe blue districts who are "asleep at the wheel," DNC vice chair David Hogg, has also called to "abolish ICE."

"We must acknowledge the terrifying moment that we are in right now, and that what we are hearing and seeing with our own eyes is, in fact, happening. We are watching as our neighbors, students and friends are being fired, targeted and disappeared. It is real. People we love are being targeted and harassed for being LGBTQ. Our co-workers, U.S. citizens and immigrants alike are being disappeared off the street by men in vans with no uniform," Ocasio-Cortez told a crowd in Montana on Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Fighting Oligarchy" Tour. 

Ocasio-Cortez has an ongoing feud with Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, as the New York congresswoman instructs her constituents how to impede ICE arrests. Ocasio-Cortez is facing a potential Department of Justice probe for a webinar she hosted in February on how to handle ICE agents. 

The Trump administration has led a robust crackdown on illegal immigration since returning to the White House this year. During the first 100 days of Trump's second term, ICE arrested 66,463 illegal immigrants and removed 65,682, according to ICE.

The agency said three in four of those arrests of illegal immigrants involved someone accused of committing a crime. 

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The Fox News Voter Analysis in 2024 found that 52% of voters said Trump was the better candidate to handle immigration, while just 36% said Harris. Additionally, it was a top issue for voters, with 20% saying it was the most important issue facing the country. 

Ocasio-Cortez, Homan and the DCCC did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment. 

Fox News Digital's Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.