United States | News & Politics

In the NJ Primary, 'Abolish ICE' Looks Like A Winning Message

Opinion - Michelle Goldberg Feb. 9, 2026

https://archive.ph/2tFLT

When Analilia Mejia, the former political director of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, held town halls during her recent congressional primary race in New Jersey, she’d invite people to stay afterward for a training on nonviolent resistance to ICE. Voters, she told me, are desperate “to understand how rising authoritarianism functions, how it’s moved in other countries, how we can best resist it through nonviolence, noncompliance and education.” Running in a special election to fill the seat formerly held by New Jersey’s new governor, Mikie Sherrill, Mejia was determined to do “more than just traditional politics,” she said.

Her rivals in last week’s crowded contest also criticized ICE. But Mejia, the daughter of Colombian and Dominican immigrants and a veteran of the progressive Working Families Party, was unique in the clarity of her opposition. She called for ICE to be abolished, not just reformed. And she tied the agency’s violent rampages — seen most starkly in Minnesota — to President Trump’s broader assault on American democracy, while seeking to imbue people with a sense that they could fight back.