DHS Secretary Fired Back After Delia Ramirez Unveiled Her Plan to Abolish ICE in Spanish

Assaults on ICE officers have surged more than 1,300 percent while sanctuary politicians smear the agents doing the job.

Now a sitting congresswoman from the Squad wants to eliminate the agency taking those hits entirely.

The words Ramirez used about the lists ICE keeps on you are only the start of what she wants gone.

Ramirez Unveils the Reimagining Safety Act to Abolish ICE and Dismantle DHS

Rep. Delia Ramirez stood in front of cameras in Chicago this week.

She switched to Spanish partway through her remarks.

She told the crowd her party would strip ICE and Customs and Border Protection of their funding and authority.

She said the agencies "keep lists of you."

Then she announced the Reimagining Safety Act, legislation to abolish ICE, eliminate CBP, and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security as it exists today.

The bill would fold TSA, FEMA, CISA, and the Coast Guard into other departments.

It would create a brand new Cabinet-level agency called the Department of Community Safety.

Ramirez wants $150 billion in current border security funding redirected into community programs instead.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Bob Grogan called the timing disturbing.

Ramirez rolled out her plan just days after the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The bill was shaped with input from immigrant advocacy groups, according to reporting on the announcement.

Ramirez is not some backbencher floating a fringe idea.

She sits on the House Homeland Security Committee.

She is the ranking member on its cybersecurity subcommittee.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin Fires Back With Names and Convictions

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin did not wait long to respond.

He called Ramirez an "open-borders politician who refuses to prioritize Americans over illegal aliens."

His agency put numbers behind the punch.

DHS says nearly 70 percent of ICE arrests involve illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime inside the United States.

A DHS spokesperson went further than Mullin did.

The spokesperson said Ramirez should be thanking law enforcement instead of attacking it, and pointed to that same 1,300 percent jump in assaults on ICE officers as proof of what the rhetoric is doing.

DHS did not stop at talking points.

The agency handed Fox News Digital a list of criminal illegal aliens arrested in Ramirez's own home state.

Bulgarian national Rumen Georgriev was convicted of rape with a weapon.

Somali national Abdukadir Haji was convicted of sexual assault and rape.

Cuban national Samuel Reyes-Silva was convicted of robbery and homicide.

Every one of those men was arrested in Illinois, the state Ramirez represents.

Ramirez did not back down.

She accused Mullin and DHS of lying to save face rather than answer for their own conduct.

Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., piled on from the Senate side, reminding voters that the people this bill protects "invaded our country."

Democrats' 2018 "Abolish ICE" Fight Already Ended in Defeat

Democrats tried this exact play in 2018.

Reps. Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, and Adriano Espaillat introduced a bill to terminate ICE within a year.

Then-Speaker Paul Ryan called it the "craziest position" he had ever seen.

Then-Vice President Mike Pence said the idea was "outrageous" and "irresponsible."

House Republicans forced a floor vote specifically to make Democrats own the slogan.

Democratic leaders panicked and voted down their own bill rather than defend it.

Jayapal later insisted to reporters she had "never used" the phrase Abolish ICE at all.

That retreat did not stop the idea from resurfacing.

Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand all floated versions of it during the 2020 primary.

Every one of them lost.

Ramirez is not hiding from the label the way Jayapal did.

She is running straight at it, in two languages, with a price tag attached.

Here is the part that should worry every parent in Ramirez's district.

Her own bill would erase an agency DHS says caught men like Rumen Georgriev and Samuel Reyes-Silva, and replace it with a department that doesn't exist yet.

No transition plan exists beyond a committee.

That is not reform.

$150 billion is what keeps agents chasing men like Georgriev instead of letting them disappear into another neighborhood.

Ramirez wants to hand that money to a department that has no agents, no academy, and no rulebook of its own yet – just a name on a press release.

The Spanish-language rollout was not an accident either.

Ramirez knows exactly who she is talking to, and it is not the swing voters her party needs back.

Democrats spent 2018 through 2020 running from this label because it cost them the White House message on crime for a decade.

Ramirez just picked it back up, dusted it off, and handed Republicans a 2026 midterm ad script for free.

Sources:

• Elizabeth Elkind, "'Squad' Democrat slammed by Trump admin for most 'radical' plan targeting ICE yet," Fox News, September 25, 2026.
• Amy Curtis, "Rep. Delia Ramirez Just Exposed the Democrats' Radical Open Borders Agenda," Townhall, September 24, 2026.
• Staff, "'Latino Power': Rep. Delia Ramirez Wants to Abolish DHS, Create 'Community Safety' Immigration Agency," Breitbart, September 24, 2026.
• Staff, "Legislation proposed to dismantle DHS, divert funding," The Center Square, September 23, 2026.
• Staff, "ICE Arrests Sexual Assailants, Burglars, and Other Violent Criminals," U.S. Department of Homeland Security, May 19, 2026.
• Lindsey McPherson, "GOP Messaging Vote on Democrats' 'Abolish ICE' Bill Set to Backfire," Roll Call, July 12, 2018.
• "House Democrats Introduced a Bill to Abolish ICE," Fortune, July 12, 2018.
• "Here's What House Democrats Envision Happening After They Abolish ICE," Government Executive, July 12, 2018.
• "Progressive Dems back off 'Abolish ICE' at first meeting since midterms," CBS News.