A former political strategist for Barack Obama has warned Democrats that they are running their party into the ground once again for proudly pushing to 'abolish ICE.' 

The divisive slogan against Donald Trump's immigration crackdown has gained traction among the woke left's most vocal proponents - including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. 

Renee Good and Alex Pretti's deaths during confrontations with border patrol agents in Minneapolis have intensified calls to dismantle the agency. 

But Democratic consultant David Axelrod cautioned Democrats running for office to steer clear of campaigning on anti-ICE sentiment. 

The Obama advisor of roughly a decade said that the notion may end up being as catastrophic to the party as the 2020 'defund the police' movement was. 

'I think that people believe you should come to the country legally, and if you don’t, you know, there should some penalty for that,' Axelrod told CNN's Boris Sanchez and Brianna Keilar on Thursday. 

'They do believe that. But I don’t think they want to abolish ICE.' 

He then compared 'abolish ICE' to the 'defund the police' movement that followed George Floyd's death after a Minneapolis cop, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for roughly nine minutes. 

'I don’t think most people who said [defund the police] believed that there should be no policing function in cities, but the implication was that there could be,' he explained.

'So I don’t think Democrats want to get into that.' 

In retrospect, the 'Defund the police' movement has been widely regarded as damaging to Democrats because it reinforced the Republican narrative that the party is soft on crime. 

The idea of pulling funding from police officers was also unpopular with most Americans, who favored reform over eliminating police officers. 

Axelrod said the same holds true for ICE - people want improvements to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) branch, not a take-down of it. 

'If it means getting rid of the name 'ICE,' which has become a very bad brand, that’s one thing,' he continued. 

'[But] if it means that we’re just gonna abandon immigration enforcement, I don’t think Democrats or Republicans would support that in large numbers.'

A Fox poll has revealed that support for abolishing ICE has doubled since 2018, now standing at 36 percent among voters.

Of the Democrats surveyed, 59 percent were on board with the measure. Only 16 percent of Republicans agreed. 

But 59 percent of all voters agreed that ICE is too aggressive - a 10-point jump since July. 

On January 15 - about a week after Good was shot - Congressman Shri Thanedar introduced the Abolish ICE Act. The legislation aims to tear down the agency. 

'Americans are being terrorized,' Thanedar said in a statement. 'We must fundamentally change the way we approach immigration: it’s time to abolish ICE.'

Democratic-socialist Mamdani has backed this ideology, writing on X earlier this week: 'ICE murdered Renee Good in broad daylight. Less than three weeks later, they killed Alex Pretti, shooting him 10 times. 

'Every day, we watch as people are ripped from their cars, their homes, their lives. We can't allow ourselves to look away from this cruelty. Abolish ICE.' 

Congresswoman Omar, who has been at constant odds with Trump over ICE and his statements about the Somali community, has also supported the movement that Axelrod described as detrimental. 

'In Congress, I continue to push for ICE to be abolished and replaced with an agency that can defend our national security without criminalizing and brutalizing vulnerable communities,' she wrote in a statement regarding her stance on immigration.   

'I am also steadfastly fighting to prevent even one more dollar from going to the Department of Homeland Security that could be used for the continued vilification of immigrants or other practices that violate the fundamental values we hold as a country.' 

Axelrod's CNN discussion comes as the White House has reportedly struck a deal with Democrats to avoid a partial government shutdown over DHS funding. 

'The only thing that can slow our Country down is another long and damaging Government Shutdown,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. 

'Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before).'

The administration and Democrats have reportedly agreed to separate DHS funding from the rest of the legislation. 

The department will be funded for two weeks as they continue debating over the Democrats' demands to tighten the reins on ICE.