Border security expert: Bill to abolish DHS and ICE is ‘Marxist nonsense’

Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez’s recently introduced bill, aimed at abolishing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), is being criticized as “Marxist” and a major safety concern. Ramirez’s sweeping bill would eliminate funding for various border security measures and anti-terrorism programs, and establish a cabinet-level Department of Community Safety.

“[I]t is no surprise the title of her bill is ‘Reimagining Safety Act,’ a blatant attempt to further tear down American institutions and replace them with Marxist nonsense,” Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, told Zeale News in a Oct. 14 statement. “Her proposals defy reality and human nature, which is why Marxism has always failed.” Ries has previously worked at the DHS on management and immigration policy and operations issues, and as counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims. 

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said on X that the bill is “straight from the playbook” of what he called “so-called ‘Democrat Socialists’ aka communists.” 

“[T]his bill would lead to one of the greatest national security risks we have ever seen,” he wrote.

Ries also questioned Ramirez’s national loyalty, noting that the Illinois representative has said “she is a proud Guatemalan before she is an American” at a 2025 summit in Mexico City. Ramirez later added that honoring her Guatemalan ancestry strengthens her commitment to America. 

In Ries’ view, Ramirez “was born in the U.S. to illegal aliens,” has “ill-gotten U.S. citizenship and should not be in the U.S. Congress.” Ramirez was born in Chicago, after her mom crossed the Rio Grande River to get into the U.S. She describes herself as “the daughter of working-class Guatemalan immigrants,” and her parents have since become American citizens. 

The Supreme Court ruled June 30 in Trump v. Barbara that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born on U.S. soil, including those whose parents are unlawfully present. 

In an Oct. 13 press release about her bill to dismantle DHS, Ramirez said there “are more than a million reasons” to act. 

“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,” she said.

The bill’s original cosponsors are Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

The bill would repeal the Homeland Security Act of 2002, create a cabinet-level Department of Community Safety, and move DHS’s functions to other agencies, according to the bill text. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would fall under the new community safety department. The Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard would be overseen by the Department of Transportation, and customs functions would be transferred to the Treasury Department. Immigration enforcement responsibilities would belong to the attorney general.

Ramirez’s bill would empty immigration detention centers nationwide, requiring the attorney general to release detained non-citizens on their own recognizance within six months of its enactment, and the government could not carry out a removal unless Congress enacts a joint resolution approving it. 

The bill would require the attorney general to “remove each ankle monitor from a noncitizen being monitored” within six months of the legislation’s enactment. It would also end detention and monitoring contracts with private companies within two years, and end 287(g) agreements that deputize local police for immigration enforcement. Voting by non-citizens would also no longer be a crime punishable by deportation. 

In terms of border security, the bill bars federal funding for a border wall starting in fiscal 2027, terminates active wall construction contracts within 60 days, and shuts down border surveillance towers.

Although ICE and the Border Patrol are part of the DHS, neither is explicitly listed in the bill as being eliminated, and apart from customs functions it does not say where CBP’s functions would go. It would convert CBP field offices into community assistance centers and create a civilian asylum-reception program staffed by social workers, medical professionals, and interpreters. 

The ambitious bill, which stands little chance of passage under the current Congress, would also close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, end federal designations of foreign terrorist organizations after one year, and authorize spending rescinded DHS immigration funds only on programs that include Medicare for All, housing, universal child care, and universal basic income.

Ramirez first announced the bill in Illinois on Sept. 23., garnering a response two days later from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who told Fox News that “radical leftists are calling to defund the police and abolish DHS. It’s NEVER going to happen.”