Rep. Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic Caucus Chair from California, dropped a revealing nugget on CNN’s News Central Friday: ICE has too much money from our perspective, and while he personally doesn’t want to abolish the agency, those Dems pushing for it are just reflecting what they are hearing from their base. It’s a classic Beltway sidestep—admitting the radical calls for dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement aren’t fringe anymore, but framing budget cuts as the moderate fix. Aguilar’s dodging full-throated support for abolition, yet signaling that ICE’s funding is fair game for the chopping block, which tells you everything about the Democratic establishment’s tightrope walk on border security ahead of midterms.
Dig deeper, and this isn’t just immigration theater; it’s a flashing red light for the 2A community. ICE isn’t some abstract bureaucracy—it’s on the front lines enforcing federal firearms laws, from tracing ghost guns smuggled across the border to busting cartel arms trafficking networks that flood our streets with untraceable killers. Remember Operation Without a Trace in 2023? ICE, alongside ATF, seized over 1,400 illegal firearms in a single Southwest sweep, many linked to Mexican cartels exploiting Biden’s porous borders. Slash ICE’s budget, and you’re kneecapping the very agency that disrupts the flow of military-grade weapons into criminal hands—ironically empowering the anti-2A narrative that assault weapons are the problem when the real culprits are smuggled AKs and 50-cals. Democrats like Aguilar know this; they’re betting voters won’t connect the dots between defunding ICE and surging gun violence stats in sanctuary cities.
The implications for gun owners are stark: a weaker ICE means more unchecked illegal arms proliferation, bolstering the left’s case for universal background checks and red-flag laws while eroding the border sovereignty that underpins our national right to self-defense. Pro-2A warriors should amplify this—call out Aguilar’s weasel words as a Trojan horse for abolition-lite. If House Dems succeed in starving ICE, expect ATF to get even more unchecked power in the vacuum, turning every FFL holder into a suspect. Time to rally: contact your reps, push back on defunding, and remind everyone that secure borders protect the Second Amendment, not undermine it.
