President Donald Trump is suggesting a possible rebrand for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a move that could soften the agency’s image for some critics while likely provoking others.
On Saturday, Trump asked Americans whether the agency’s acronym, ICE, should be changed to “NICE.”
“The concept I have had for quite some time — A strong feeling that the name of these Patriots, ‘ICE,’ should be changed to, ‘NICE,’ in that it will totally discombobulate Crooked, Dishonest, and Unpatriotic Reporters and Journalists,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social account.
The president then launched an online poll offering two options: “ICE Agents” and “NICE Agents.” The poll attracted 10,000 votes within its first hour, though it did not indicate which option was leading.
Trump went on to argue that ICE “has been abused by the Fake News Media at levels never seen before,” while praising its agents as “Great Patriots who work hard, and do a fantastic job in a very hostile environment.”
He then outlined how the proposed name change might be used, suggesting it would irritate his political opponents on the left.
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“For them to say, ‘We went to a NICE Facility today,’ as opposed to ‘ICE’ or, ‘NICE Agents have deported a Violent Drug Dealer,’ they won’t be able to handle it, they will go totally crazy! All it means is adding an ‘N’ (‘National’) to ‘ICE (“Immigration and Customs Enforcement”) — A much more prestigious name,” he wrote.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump was seriously proposing a formal name change for ICE. Also on Saturday, he posted another poll asking supporters which spelling they preferred for a nickname aimed at Democrats: “Dumocrats” or “Dumbocrats.” The White House was contacted for comment about the ICE poll.
The president’s NICE remarks come after weeks of violent clashes between agitators and law enforcement outside the Delaney Hall migrant detention facility, in Newark.
An influx of out-of-state agitators were recently arrested during the chaotic standoff with law enforcement outside the facility, The Post exclusively reported.
At least two of the dozen arrested have ties to the radical nonprofit Sunrise Movement, one of the dark money groups clamoring to “shut down Delaney Hall” and “abolish ICE” since the unrest began, according to information from social media.
The killing of Alex Pretti and Rene Good during anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis in January became a rallying cry for the left and the subject of a Bruce Springsteen song.
Back in 2002, the Homeland Security Act reorganization created an agency with a different name. It was the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but BICE never took, and DHS announced the official name change to ICE in 2007.