Illinois Democrat Delia Ramirez introduced a bill to abolish ICE, eliminate Border Patrol and dismantle DHS, drawing sharp rebukes from the White House and Homeland Security.
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., formally introduced the Reimagining Safety Act on Tuesday, a measure that would break apart the Department of Homeland Security, abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and eliminate Customs and Border Protection, including the Border Patrol. Fox News reported the progressive lawmaker is advancing the plan with original cosponsors Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
The bill would replace DHS with a new Department of Community Safety while keeping some agencies intact. TSA and FEMA would be preserved under the proposal. None of the changes are in force. The legislation would still have to pass Congress and win a presidential signature.
Ramirez framed the push as a daily call to action. She said Americans keep finding reasons to tear down the current structure and rebuild around a different vision of safety.
"Every day, Americans wake up with a new reason to dismantle DHS, reimagine safety and build something that honors our shared humanity,"
Ramirez said.
That language lands against a clear record of what the agencies actually do. CBP secures the borders and screens travelers and goods. ICE enforces immigration law inside the country. DHS as a whole employs roughly 270,000 people charged with keeping Americans safe. The bill treats those missions as optional.
Under the Reimagining Safety Act, TSA and the Coast Guard would move to the Department of Transportation. FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would shift into the proposed Department of Community Safety. Customs functions would go to the Treasury Department. Certain immigration functions would transfer to the Justice Department.
The measure would also ban federal funding for border walls beginning in fiscal year 2027. It would require the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay to close within 60 days of enactment. Those provisions sit alongside the core demand to abolish ICE and erase Border Patrol as an agency.
Homeland Security leaders rejected the entire approach. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin had already blasted the idea last month in a statement to Fox News Digital. He tied the proposal to a broader left-wing pattern of weakening enforcement.
"Radical leftists are calling to defund the police and abolish DHS. It’s NEVER going to happen. Our 270,000 DHS patriots are keeping Americans SAFE, unlike this open-borders politician who refuses to prioritize Americans over illegal aliens,"
Mullin said.
A DHS spokesperson went further on Ramirez herself. The agency said she should thank law enforcement for removing dangerous criminals from her district rather than attack the people doing the work.
"should be thanking our law enforcement for removing these dangerous criminals from her district, NOT vilifying law enforcement."
the spokesperson said.
The same progressive impulse shows up elsewhere in Congress. More than 100 DSA-aligned Democrats have already pressed party leaders to back abolishing ICE. Ramirez’s bill moves that demand from pressure campaign to formal legislation.
White House Spokeswoman Lauren Bis answered the bill with a direct comparison of recent border results. She blamed the prior administration and open-border Democrats for letting millions of illegal immigrants into the country, including people with serious criminal records.
"Biden and open-border Democrats allowed millions of illegal aliens, including murderers, pedophiles, gang members, terrorists, and other violent criminals, to invade our country,"
Bis said.
She then pointed to the current record under President Trump: the most secure border in American history, 16 straight months of zero releases of illegal aliens at the border, and a stop to drugs pouring into communities. Bis said radical Democrats want to reverse that progress by abolishing ICE and Border Patrol. The contrast, she argued, has never been clearer.
"President Trump delivered the most secure border in American history, 16 straight months of zero releases of illegal aliens at the border, and stopped drugs from pouring into our communities. Radical Democrats want to go back to open borders and abolish ICE and Border Patrol. The contrast has never been clearer."
Bis said.
That record matters because the bill does not tweak enforcement. It eliminates the agencies that carry it out. Voters who watched chaos at the southern border for years now see a formal proposal to scrap the tools that restored order.
Party leaders keep facing the same internal pressure. A former Clinton official has warned that Democratic Socialists will destroy the party unless leaders push back. Bills like Ramirez’s test whether that warning gets heard.
Ramirez is identified as a progressive Squad member. Her original cosponsors include Tlaib, another Squad figure, along with Grijalva of Arizona and McGovern of Massachusetts. Their joint sponsorship puts the abolish-ICE demand on the House calendar in black and white.
The proposal does not hide its scope. It dismantles DHS. It abolishes ICE. It eliminates CBP and Border Patrol. It freezes future wall funding. It orders Guantánamo’s detention center closed on a short clock. Supporters call that “reimagining safety.” Opponents call it a return to the open-border failures Americans just rejected.
House Democrats have shown similar instincts on other institutional fights. They voted down an amendment that would have locked the Supreme Court at nine justices, another example of progressive priorities colliding with institutional stability. The pattern is consistent: weaken the structures that enforce limits, then claim the resulting disorder proves the old system failed.
Socialism’s pull inside the party remains a live question. Hakeem Jeffries has dodged direct questions on the subject even as polling shows many Democrats prefer socialism to capitalism. Ramirez’s bill is the policy expression of that shift, replace border enforcement with a “community safety” department and call the result progress.
The legislation is clear about mechanism even if its prospects are not. TSA and Coast Guard would leave DHS for Transportation. FEMA and CISA would move into the new Community Safety department. Customs work would sit at Treasury. Immigration functions would land at Justice. ICE would cease to exist. Border Patrol would disappear with CBP.
Wall money would be cut off starting in fiscal 2027. Guantánamo’s military detention center would face a 60-day closure order after enactment. The entire package still requires majority votes in both chambers and a signature. Until then, every current immigration enforcement authority remains in place.
Mullin’s earlier statement left no ambiguity about the administration’s stance. DHS will not pick and choose which laws to enforce, and it will not entertain abolition. The 270,000 people who work the mission every day are not a bargaining chip for progressive messaging.
Radical groups keep testing how far the party will go. A DSA leader recently dodged basic questions about how rapists would face justice in a world without police or prisons. The same mindset now appears in legislation that would erase ICE and Border Patrol. When enforcement vanishes, the criminals do not.
Americans already lived through the alternative. Millions of illegal immigrants crossed under the prior open-border approach. Some carried serious criminal records. Communities absorbed the costs. The current border results, zero releases for 16 straight months, drugs slowed, order restored, show what happens when the agencies Ramirez wants to abolish are actually allowed to work.
The Reimagining Safety Act does not fix a broken system. It targets the system that is finally functioning. Taxpayers fund ICE and Border Patrol to remove dangerous criminals and hold the line. A bill that answers that work with abolition tells those same taxpayers their safety is secondary to an ideological revise.
Secure borders are not optional. Lawful immigration requires enforcement. The people who live with the consequences of elite experiments already know the difference between community safety and open-border theater.