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Inside the Democratic ICE Storm

A remarkably candid conversation with Adam Jentleson, the founder and president of the Searchlight Institute, about the rhetorical fight over abolishing ICE that’s raging inside the Democratic Party.

ICE protest
"They don’t want agents to be wearing masks, but fundamentally, they believe that our immigration laws should be enforced, and that’s not going to change. Support for ICE specifically might toggle up and down, but Americans are never going to want to stop seeing real enforcement of immigration laws, says Searchlight Institute founder and president Adam Jentleson. Photo: Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
Peter Hamby
January 20, 2026

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With his limitless charm, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has managed to win over even the most hardened Democratic pragmatists—the kind of establishment politicians and operatives who typically wouldn’t shower a democratic socialist with the sort of praise the mayor has received since winning his election last November. But on Tuesday, Mamdani waded into the raging debate over the term “Abolish ICE,” and reminded his new centrist admirers that he is still very much a man of the left.