Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Illinois) has introduced a bill that would abolish not just ICE, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) altogether, repealing the 2002 law establishing the agency and replacing it with one focused on protecting civil and human rights.
The wide-ranging legislation, dubbed the Reimagining Safety Act, would repeal the Homeland Security Act. Signed by President George W. Bush as part of his administration’s post-9/11 “war on terror,” the transformational bill created DHS and led to the establishment of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The bill would abolish DHS, CBP, and ICE — going further than the progressive call to abolish ICE. Other offices currently housed within the department, like Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the customs functions of CBP would be broken off into different authorities.
“We know that DHS was intentionally established with an overbroad mission and unchecked power. The last two years have made it visible what so many communities have actually been saying for decades: That DHS, frankly, is the single greatest threat to our public safety today,” Ramirez said in a press conference previewing the legislation last month. “We must strip away every single tool they are using to terrorize us.”
In DHS’s place, Ramirez’s bill would create a cabinet-level “Department of Community Safety,” which would address community concerns ranging from gun violence to disaster relief, using a public health-based approach. All immigration detention centers would be shuttered.
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I wouldn’t have agreed a couple years ago but ICE has proven that are not going to follow any domestic or international laws and are executing people in the street and there aren’t any whistleblowers, internal fights/struggles, etc. They have been gutted and couped.
It’s good to see Democrats that are actually going in the right direction
Doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but glad to see it anyways.
It’s important to get this conversation in front of voters now so they can go full speed with it next year after winning both houses of congress
Even then, mainstream dems do not support this.
The mainstream Dems as a block are rather liquid, a lot of them would fall in line if the winds blow hard enough. The problem is true asswipes like Schumer.
While I’m super in favor of the sentiment of this the word “abolish” is such a terrible comms approach.
We will still need border protection and airport security, question is how should this work not let’s just burn it all down. I know this proposal has replacement ideas which is great but saying abolish and letting this be a headline just plays into the hands of the idiots who won’t think past the headline.
It worked better before these orgs were created. they’re entirely superfluous when not harmful
We need to end the Patriot Act. That is the conversation that needs to be made. That would encompass all of this.
Citizens United too. Both of those gotta go at the very least, though I still think we need to start over entirely. Balkanize or not, new constitution.
Be careful what you wish for. You might ask for a new constitution, but what if it’s worse? This one at least tries to guarantee us certain rights, even if somewhat toothlessly.
But the reality is things could be so much worse than they are. They are bad, of course, and it’s not my intention to minimize that. But the sole reason things aren’t already worse than they are is because of those pesky constitutional safeguards putting roadblocks between the current administration and its agenda.
So let’s not lose sight of what we do have, nor throw the baby out with the bathwater.
A constitutional convention might be overdue, but I’m reluctant to start that conversation until we get rid of the fascist trifecta.
