Michigan Dem El-Sayed Called Illegal Immigrants ‘Undocumented Americans,’ ‘Our Undocumented Sisters, Brothers’

Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed referred to illegal immigrants as “undocumented Americans” and “undocumented sisters and brothers” during a 2020 episode of his podcast, years before calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished. During the May 12, 2020, episode of his America Dissected podcast, El-Sayed accused then-President Donald Trump of having “weaponized immigration for his political purposes.” “There is no issue that better demonstrates that than immigration,” he said. “From his decision to end the DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] program, to his Muslim ban, to his activation of the public charge rule, to his concentration camps at the southern border, to the way he has deployed ICE to round up and deport people.” “And beneath it all are immigrants, actual people with hopes and dreams and fears and lives,” El-Sayed continued. “People who have come here for nothing more than the notion that they could build a better life here. My parents, and unless you’re Native American or black, your parents or grandparents or great-great-grandparents came here for the exact same reasons.” “Undocumented people are among the most vulnerable in our society, particularly during this pandemic,” El-Sayed said. “We have deemed their labor, quote-unquote, essential, while deeming their existence illegal. And this pandemic has hit undocumented Americans hard.” Later in the episode, El-Sayed referred to illegal immigrants as “our undocumented sisters and brothers.” Breitbart News reported that during an interview with podcaster Evan James, El-Sayed called for ICE to be abolished. “It seems to me that the middle position is like, this shouldn’t exist,” El-Sayed said. He later added, “I would like to abolish the agency that has existed, in large part, to end or at least push back against the rule of law and the Constitution. That should be an obvious thing that everyone should say.” In another set of comments reported by Breitbart News in May, El-Sayed said he went to Minneapolis “to check it out for myself” and said ICE was “not about immigration.” “Minneapolis is not on the southern border. Wrong border,” El-Sayed said. “So [ICE] is not about immigration. This is about whether or not we want to live under a constitution and we believe in the rule of law.”