BS BULLETIN:

• Rep. Delia Ramirez announced legislation she says will abolish ICE and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security.
• Her proposed Reimagining Safety Act would also eliminate CBP and Border Patrol while preserving agencies including FEMA, TSA and CISA under a reorganized federal government.
• Ramirez acknowledged the proposal is designed to be “agitational” and called DHS “the single greatest threat to our public safety today.”

Rep. Delia Ramirez isn’t proposing another round of ICE reforms.

She wants ICE gone.

And while she’s at it, the Illinois Democrat wants to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security too.

Ramirez unveiled plans Wednesday in Chicago for what she calls the Reimagining Safety Act, legislation she says would repeal the authorities underpinning DHS, redirect its funding and create a new federal Department of Community Safety.

“We are going to abolish the Department of Homeland Security,” Ramirez said in Spanish during the press conference, according to video from reporter Julio Rosas.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, who said she is more proud to be Guatemalan than American, says in Spanish:

“We are going to abolish the Department of Homeland Security…we are going to create a Department of Community Safety” so immigration is not handled by an agency that “likes to call… pic.twitter.com/gVJ3o1U1Bf

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) September 23, 2026

She said immigration enforcement should not be handled by an agency that, in her characterization, treats immigrants like terrorists.

Ramirez wasn’t exactly trying to make her proposal sound moderate. She called DHS “the single greatest threat to our public safety today.” And she knows what reaction that’s going to produce.

“Let’s be frank, we know that this bill is going to be agitational,” Ramirez said.

That may be putting it mildly.

DHS is considerably larger than ICE. The department created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks includes or oversees ICE, Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol, TSA, FEMA, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

NEW: Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), who has said she is a “proud anchor baby”, will hold a press conference in Chicago tomorrow morning to introduce legislation that would “dismantle DHS” & “abolish ICE”.

Ramirez says her “Reimagining Safety Act” would “repeal the authorities that…

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 22, 2026

Ramirez says her proposal would keep FEMA, TSA and CISA.

ICE would disappear. So would CBP and the Border Patrol. That raises an obvious question: Who handles the border and customs?

Ramirez’s plan calls for immigration and customs responsibilities to be reorganized under a new government structure centered around what she describes as community safety. More precise operational details should become clearer when the actual legislative text is introduced.

Oh, also TSA.

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 22, 2026

And that’s another important detail getting lost in some of Wednesday’s headlines: There isn’t a bill before Congress yet. Ramirez announced the proposal Wednesday and said she plans to formally introduce the legislation “in the coming weeks.”

She tied the proposal to recent immigration-enforcement incidents and deaths in federal custody, including the case of 28-year-old Wilbur Rafael Garces Perez, whom Ramirez said had been shot in the back.

“When they ask us why we made the choices we made, we’re going to remind them of the moment we’re living,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez has been an outspoken critic of immigration enforcement for years. In February, she called for redirecting billions of dollars in immigration-enforcement funding toward “humane community safety and affordability concerns,” while proposing additional oversight of ICE and CBP, body-camera requirements and restrictions on the use of deadly force.

Then there’s the quote that virtually guaranteed Ramirez would become part of the immigration debate herself. Ramirez, who was born in Chicago to Guatemalan immigrant parents, has described herself as a “proud anchor baby.”

And during a 2025 appearance at the Panamerican Congress in Mexico City, she declared: “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.”

That remark generated substantial Republican criticism at the time.

Now Ramirez is preparing to put an actual legislative proposal behind one of the left’s longest-running immigration slogans. “Abolish ICE” is no longer the whole pitch. Her proposal would abolish the department ICE belongs to as well.

MY QUICK TAKE

Remember when “Abolish ICE” was treated as the position Democrats would eventually have to explain away?

Ramirez apparently looked at that slogan and decided it wasn’t ambitious enough.

ICE? Gone.

Border Patrol? Gone.

CBP? Gone.

DHS? Take the sign off the building.

Whatever else happens with this proposal, nobody is going to accuse Delia Ramirez of hiding the ball.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

• Twitchy — Ramirez announces plan to abolish ICE and dismantle DHS
• Congressional Record — Ramirez outlines immigration-enforcement overhaul, February 2026