House Democrats introduce new bill to abolish not just ICE, but the entire Department of Homeland Security
Well, this is an interesting strategy to deploy right before the November midterms.
To be clear, it’s not exactly unheard of for politicians — both Democrats and Republicans — to ratchet up the campaign rhetoric as Election Day draws nearer.
But the secret to turning up the temperature is to ensure that things don’t get too hot.
And House Democrats may have just put the thermostat at an uncomfortably warm number.
Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez raised a few eyebrows on Tuesday when she decided to intensify her anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement rhetoric — a popular subtopic among the Democrats — to the point where it engulfed the Department of Homeland Security as well.
Calling it the Reimagining Safety Act, Ramirez’s office said her latest legislation is intended to “dismantle the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and create the Department of Community Safety.”
Ramirez laid out her exact plan with six steps, including the establishment of that Department of Community Safety.
Some of these goals are even loftier.
One such goal reads, “Begin the process of establishing a separate civil immigration system.”
Another goal includes reinvesting immigration enforcement funds “in our communities.”
But the most curious goals were for DHS and ICE.
Ramirez outright states that ICE — the arm of the government responsible for handling immigration-related crime — should cease to exist and should be abolished.
As for DHS, Ramirez did note that she would preserve “the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Customs functions.”
“Every person dead in detention, shot or killed by ICE and CBP, every neighbor deported to a third country, every family separated, every community FEMA failed, every miscarriage due to substandard care, every dissenter wrongfully branded, targeted, and persecuted as ‘terrorist,’ and every threat against our elections by Trump, Markwayne, and Miller is a reason DHS must be dismantled and something new must take its place. There are more than a million reasons to take action today,” said Ramirez.
She added, “DHS was founded out of a profound national trauma, established to violate our rights under the pretense of securing our safety. But we cannot add new pains to old ones.”
This is a risky move from a Democratic Party that is largely expecting good news from the forthcoming midterm elections.
While this sort of rhetoric will almost certainly play with her base, capturing their own voters has not been the issue for Democrats.
The blue donkey party needs independent and undecided voters — and it’s not nearly as clear whether this sort of inflammatory rhetoric will play with voters who view DHS as a necessary part of U.S. security.
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