The raid on the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is underscoring an Illinois lawmaker’s push to replace the Department of Homeland Security with a new agency she said would better protect the American people.
Rep. Delia C. Ramirez, D-Ill., has formally introduced the Reimagining Safety Act. It would create a Department of Community Safety she argued would preserve critical security functions while overhauling immigration enforcement. Ramirez called the recent raid on Omar’s home “bone-chilling” and stressed DHS has increasingly put public safety at risk through surveillance and abuses of power, with little accountability.
“Targeting a sitting member of Congress who the president considers his political enemy – this should concern everyone, because if they can do this to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, they can do it to any of us,” Ramirez contended.
The 71-page bill outlines how the new agency would redirect DHS funds and responsibilities to other departments. In the legislation, ICE and Customs and Border Protection would be abolished in their current forms and replaced by establishing a separate civil immigration system.
The measure faces opposition from Republicans and the Trump administration, who argued dismantling DHS and replacing ICE would weaken protections for the American people.
Ramirez countered her constituents and many people across the country do not feel safe and she is trying to change it. She underscored her plan preserves and redistributes critical DHS responsibilities, rather than eliminating them, and would shift more resources toward communities affected by enforcement, limiting government surveillance and militarized policing.
“The biggest threat to the homeland right now is the Department of Homeland Security. And if we’re truly concerned about national security, we have to dismantle DHS,” Ramirez emphasized.
The bill has a handful of cosponsors. Ramirez acknowledged it faces long odds in a Republican-controlled Congress but suggested a DHS overhaul is overdue.
“A lot of the people, for some reason, believe that this agency won’t harm them. Fascism always requires a public enemy. Today, they say it’s immigrants, protesters, young people, trans children. Tomorrow, it’s anyone they deem,” Ramirez asserted. “With what happened with Congresswoman Omar, it became more real than ever before.”
