Progressives Target ICE—Now Congress?

A progressive Democrat who once stood shoulder to shoulder with “Abolish ICE” organizers has now secured her party’s nomination in a suburban New Jersey district, underscoring how polarizing ideas can quietly migrate from protest signs to the halls of Congress.

Story Snapshot

Analilia Mejia, a progressive aligned with “Abolish ICE” activists, has won the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District and will appear on the November ballot.^[3]
Her victory in a traditionally moderate, suburban district shows how hard‑left immigration ideas are testing Democratic strategy in the Trump-era 2026 midterms.^[3]
Calls to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) divide Democrats, energize some younger voters, and alarm many conservatives and moderates worried about border chaos and public safety.^[3]^[5]
Both left and right see Mejia’s rise as another sign that party elites are playing political games with immigration, while ordinary Americans pay the real-world costs.^[2]^[3]

Who Analilia Mejia Is, And How She Won

Analilia Mejia is a longtime political organizer who now serves as the United States representative for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District after first winning an April special election to replace Democrat Mikie Sherrill.^[3]^[6] New Jersey media report that Mejia went on to win the regular Democratic primary for the same seat “again,” securing more than 80 percent of the vote against little-known opposition.^[1] Live election reporting from Essex County and other counties listed Mejia at the top of the Democratic primary field, confirming her status as the November nominee.^[5]

Political coverage in New Jersey describes Mejia as a progressive Democrat backed by national left-leaning groups such as Our Revolution and the Working Families Party. These organizations celebrated her special-election win as a victory for a more aggressive, movement-style politics inside the Democratic Party. National outlets frame her as part of a broader class of insurgent progressives who challenge traditional party moderates on issues like immigration enforcement, economic inequality, and policing, mirroring fights that have played out in Democratic primaries since at least 2018.^[3]

How “Abolish ICE” Moved From Slogan To Campaign Issue

The “Abolish ICE” demand targets the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, created after the September 11 attacks to handle immigration enforcement and interior deportations.^[5] The slogan gained national prominence in 2018 during backlash to the Trump administration’s family separation policy at the southern border.^[5] Progressive activists argued that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was inherently abusive, and some legal scholars have since proposed replacing it with a “more humane” enforcement system that disperses its functions across other agencies.^[5]^[6]

Reporting from 2026 notes that calls to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement have re-emerged in the Trump second term, especially among younger Democrats and progressive challengers running in congressional primaries.^[3] Polling summarized by analysts shows self-identified Democrats broadly sympathetic to abolishing or fundamentally restructuring Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while the overall public remains more evenly split or skeptical.^[2]^[3] Party strategists worry that aggressive “Abolish ICE” rhetoric can alienate moderates and older voters who are frustrated with illegal immigration but also distrust both parties’ handling of the border.^[2]^[3]

Mejia’s Alignment With “Abolish ICE” Activists

National political reporting on the 2026 New Jersey primaries highlighted New Jersey’s 11th District as an early test of how far Democrats would go on immigration enforcement in the Trump era. In that coverage, Analilia Mejia was described as “the most outspoken candidate” in the crowded Democratic field in calling to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, placing her squarely alongside activists who want the agency dismantled rather than simply reformed. That framing connects her primary campaign to the broader protest movement that has organized rallies, sit-ins, and pressure campaigns around “Abolish ICE” since 2018.^[3]^[5]

Because Mejia embraced that space, activist networks that once targeted Democratic incumbents for being too cautious on immigration shifted to helping her secure name recognition, volunteers, and small-dollar fundraising.^[3] Their support helped her stand out in a blue-leaning but suburban district where many residents are uneasy with both family-separation policies and unchecked border crossings.^[3] For voters already disillusioned with establishment Democrats, Mejia’s willingness to echo activist language signaled independence from party leadership, even as it raised alarm bells for conservatives who see “Abolish ICE” as a threat to basic border control.^[2]^[3]

What Her Win Signals About Parties, Elites, And Voters

Mejia’s victory exposes a core tension inside the Democratic Party: activists and many younger voters want a clean break from what they view as a cruel enforcement regime, while party leaders fear being painted as “open borders” in swing suburbs.^[2]^[3] In practice, many national Democrats have tried to soft-pedal or rebrand “Abolish ICE,” shifting their public focus back to healthcare, wages, and corruption, even when they privately support strong limits on Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics.^[1]^[2] That gap between rhetoric and policy deepens the sense among voters that elites speak out of both sides of their mouths.

Between Analilia Mejia winning her primary and Dr. Adam Hamawy winning his, a good chunk of New Jersey has made it known that they support progressive politics and they support Palestinian rights (as my book discussed, those two things don't necessarily go together).

— Mitchell Plitnick 🔥🕎 (@MJPlitnick) June 3, 2026

For conservatives who already believe Washington refuses to enforce immigration laws, a candidate aligned with “Abolish ICE” winning a safe Democratic seat becomes proof that border security is being sacrificed for ideology and political theater.^[2]^[3] For liberals who see Immigration and Customs Enforcement as abusive and unaccountable, Mejia’s rise looks like overdue pushback against a security bureaucracy they believe has gone rogue.^[2]^[5]^[6] For many ordinary Americans on both sides, the bigger picture remains the same: the political class uses hot-button issues like immigration to rally bases and raise money, while failing, year after year, to deliver a functional system that protects both national sovereignty and basic human dignity.^[2]^[3]^[5]