Kenneth Genalo Has Had Enough of Politicians Blaming ICE for Laws They Wrote

Kenneth Genalo doesn’t mince words. As the man running Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in New York City, he’s watched politicians trip over themselves to vilify his agents while those same elected officials refuse to change the laws those agents are sworn to uphold. His message to the abolish ICE crowd is refreshingly simple: Do your job or get out of the way.

"If you don’t like the job we’re doing and the priorities and the people that we’re targeting, change the law," Genalo said during an exclusive interview. "Congressional people, senators, representatives. Change the law, don’t demonize ICE for doing the job that you empowered us to do."

It’s a fair point that somehow gets lost in the performative outrage. These aren’t rogue agents making up their own rules. They’re enforcing laws passed by Congress, signed by presidents, and upheld by courts. But facts like these don’t play well on social media, so instead we get 143 New York elected officials, including 31 city council members, signing letters demanding ICE be dismantled. They call the agency a threat to democracy while conveniently ignoring that democracy is what created immigration enforcement in the first place.

The timing of Genalo’s comments came during a Brooklyn ride-along where ICE arrested two men. One faced a pending felony sexual abuse charge. The other had served seven years for assault. These aren’t sympathetic cases. These aren’t family men picked up for traffic violations. Yet protesters still showed up to disrupt the operation, including one where agents tried to apprehend an Ecuadorian national facing child sexual abuse charges.

"Why would you protest that we’re trying to arrest this individual?" Genalo asked. It’s a question that deserves an answer but probably won’t get one.

The disconnect here is staggering. Politicians like newly elected Democrat Claire Valdez, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have made abolishing ICE a cornerstone of their platforms. They cite isolated incidents and broad accusations of abuse while ignoring the daily work of removing violent criminals from American streets. The letter signed by those 143 officials pointed to fatal shootings in Minneapolis as evidence of systemic problems, painting with the broadest brush possible.

But Genalo sees something different. He sees mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters doing a job that increasingly puts them in harm’s way because local officials won’t cooperate. "We’re mothers, we’re fathers, we are brothers, we have sisters, sons and daughters, and we’re doing our job," he said. The rhetoric from politicians has real consequences, emboldening protesters and turning routine arrests into confrontations that endanger everyone involved.

Here’s what gets lost in the political theater: Both men arrested during that Brooklyn operation had previously been in local custody. ICE had filed detainer requests. Local authorities released them anyway. So instead of a controlled transfer in a secure facility, ICE agents had to track these men down on public streets, surrounded by protesters, with innocent bystanders nearby. Sanctuary policies don’t make communities safer. They make enforcement harder and more dangerous.

Genalo knows dangerous. The Brooklyn-born veteran spent 34 years in law enforcement and was deployed to ground zero after September 11th. He remembers what happens when federal and local agencies don’t cooperate, when intelligence doesn’t get shared, when politics overrides common sense. The 9/11 Commission documented these failures exhaustively. We learned hard lessons about the cost of bureaucratic silos and jurisdictional pride.

"We should be standing arm-in-arm with our NYPD brethren, helping the city," Genalo said. There was a time when that happened. ICE maintained a dedicated unit at Rikers Island, reviewing the immigration status of foreign-born inmates before release. Agents took more than 100 people a week into federal custody through that arrangement. Then Mayor Bill de Blasio ended it. Mayor Eric Adams tried to restore cooperation but faced City Council restrictions. Now we’re back to street arrests and political grandstanding.

The confrontation escalated in November when Mamdani threatened legal action over ICE’s alleged unauthorized use of city-owned parking lots. Think about that for a second. The mayor of America’s largest city is fighting about parking spaces while violent offenders walk free. The Department of Homeland Security wasn’t impressed, responding that Mamdani should be grateful agents are cleaning up streets he won’t secure himself.

"Seven of the 10 safest cities in America cooperate with ICE," a DHS spokesperson noted. That’s not coincidence. Cities that work with federal immigration enforcement see results. Cities that obstruct it see chaos.

The broader question remains unanswered. What exactly do these politicians want? They won’t change the laws. They won’t let agents enforce existing laws. They won’t cooperate with federal authorities. They just want ICE abolished, as if immigration enforcement will somehow stop being necessary if we eliminate the agency doing it. It’s magical thinking dressed up as progressive policy.

Genalo’s frustration is understandable. He’s asking elected officials to be honest about what they want. If immigration law itself is the problem, then debate it, vote on it, change it through the democratic process. But don’t ask federal agents to enforce laws while simultaneously calling them villains for doing exactly that. Don’t create sanctuary policies that force dangerous arrests on public streets and then blame ICE when those arrests get messy.

You know what’s missing from this entire debate? Any acknowledgment that some migrants really do commit serious crimes and need to be removed. Any recognition that ICE agents are people with families who face real danger. Any honesty about the trade-offs between ideological purity and public safety.

The abolish ICE movement isn’t about reform or accountability. It’s about virtue signaling while someone else deals with the consequences. It’s easy to sign letters and give speeches. It’s harder to explain why convicted criminals get released back into communities when federal agents wanted to deport them. It’s harder still to look families in the eye after someone who should have been in custody commits another crime.

Genalo gets this because he’s lived it. He was at ground zero. He knows what failure looks like. He’s watched cooperation break down and seen the results. His warning isn’t hypothetical. It’s grounded in experience that should terrify anyone paying attention.

The politicians calling for ICE’s abolition should take his challenge seriously. Change the law if you don’t like it. But stop hiding behind moral preening while others do the hard work you lack the courage to defend.