Senate candidate Graham Platner (D) on Saturday called for the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and demanded that its agents be brought before congressional hearings and held accountable, saying “people need to go to prison.”
Speaking at a town-hall event in the southern Maine town of Windham, Platner said the American public deserves transparency and accountability from federal enforcement agencies.
“We need to have public hearings, public, frankly, probably trials down the road,” Platner told attendees. “Because the American people deserve to know what the hell is going on right now, and how the people doing it can justify it to themselves.”
Platner accused ICE agents of being “masked armed thugs” and said the agency was involved in “kidnapping people off the streets of the United States because of their skin color.” He added: “Organizations that are used to kidnap Americans are not organizations that should exist in the future.”
The progressive candidate said that if he had his way, every single ICE agent who wore a mask would be brought before a Senate subcommittee to explain their actions.
Though Democrats have long criticized ICE, outright calls for its abolition in Platner’s remarks mark a more aggressive stance by a candidate.
Platner did not provide a detailed legislative plan for dismantling ICE or specify which agency would assume its duties, but he emphasized his intent to hold agents accountable and rebuild power structures to bring about change.
Platner, who is running on a platform that includes defending LGBTQ rights, also addressed a separate effort underway in Maine to place a 2026 referendum on the ballot that would bar transgender girls from participating in girls’ high school sports. He said he opposes the proposal.
Staking out a position on his party’s leftward flank, he also weighed in on Wednesday of this week on transgender participation in girls’ sports, telling News Center Maine that he opposes an effort to place a 2026 ballot initiative before voters that would bar transgender girls from competing in girls’ high school athletics.
“I do not think they should be banned,” he said. “I think banning people from playing in sports in the gender that they see themselves as and identify as, doing that in a wholesale way is going to be restrictive of people’s rights. So, I do not think that banning is the answer.”
His comments coincided with women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines speaking in Maine on Saturday, campaigning in support of the proposed ballot measure, which she argues is necessary to maintain fairness and safety in girls’ athletics.
