The legislation, the Reimagining Safety Act, was developed in consultation with community groups and local and state representatives. The advocacy organizations Just Futures Law, which focuses on immigrant rights and racial justice, and Mijente, which describes itself as a “vehicle for building independent Latinx political power,” helped shape the calls to terminate the border towers program, following a joint report they put out earlier this year on the technology used by ICE. The legislation is intended to be part of a broader proposal to replace the Department of Homeland Security with a new Department of Community Safety while moving CISA, FEMA, TSA, and customs functions to other existing federal agencies. Her office has yet to release the text of the proposed legislation, saying that it will come in the next few weeks.
There has been growing public support for abolishing ICE in the wake of the second Trump administration’s highly visible enforcement operations across American cities, the buildout of its detention apparatus, and shootings by ICE and CBP agents. Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a delivery driver, was shot in the back by an ICE agent just last weekend in Austin, Texas.
But for Ramirez, abolishing just ICE is not enough. At a press conference held in Chicago on Wednesday, Ramirez said, “There’s no question that DHS has to be dismantled. We need to provide them a road map in how we do it,” Ramirez said.
It will not be the first time that a bill to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security has been introduced, but previous proposals have not gone very far. This proposal will also face a steep uphill battle in Congress, where even some Democrats favor reforming rather than outright dismantling the organization. Ramirez, however, sits on both the House committee that oversees the department, and is the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee’s cybersecurity subcommittee.
“We’re limiting state surveillance, we’re reigning unlawful abuses of data and curbing the militarized enforcement. We’re beginning the process of establishing a separate civil immigration system,” Ramirez said.
DHS and CBP did not offer an immediate response for comment.
