THE CAMERAS CAME FIRST
FACTSFIRSTUS.COM FOLLOW-UP: RAMIREZ WANTS DHS DISMANTLED. SHE WANTS THE HEADLINE BEFORE THE BILL.
The Illinois Democrat says she would abolish ICE and CBP and redirect an estimated $150 billion. She held the news conference before formally introducing the legislation that would explain who enforces the law afterward.
By FactsFirstus.com Staff Writer | September 23, 2026
A state court releases someone. Federal officers have a separate legal basis to take that person into immigration custody. They arrive to act.
Now remove the agency assigned to do the job. Remove its detention authority. Tell the officers a new system is coming.
What happens to the person standing in front of them?
That is the question Illinois Democratic U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez should have been ready to answer when she stepped before the cameras in Chicago on Wednesday. Instead, she announced a plan to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, create a Department of Community Safety, and redirect an estimated $150 billion or more.
She calls it the Reimagining Safety Act. She had not formally introduced the bill.
Welcome to the crazy season, otherwise known as the midterms. A politician can put a bold title behind a podium and command a day of attention. Ramirez chose that moment to propose one of the largest federal security reorganizations imaginable, while the public still could not read the legislative text.
That is a remarkable order of events. The country got the announcement before it got the instructions.
Ramirez has not been vague about what she wants to tear down. In a September statement, she said:
“We have to take every weapon, every dollar, every authority away. We have to dismantle DHS.”
Representative Delia Ramirez
Those are not words voters should wave past. Every authority includes the powers federal officers need when a person refuses to obey a lawful order. If Ramirez intends to transfer those powers, she should identify the officers and agencies that would receive them. If she intends to end them, she should say so and defend the consequences.
Her official summary says the plan would preserve cybersecurity, disaster response, airport security, and customs functions. She said TSA and the Coast Guard would move to the Department of Transportation. Her office says it would begin establishing a separate civil immigration system.
That outline raises more questions than it answers. What would “separate” mean when someone ignores a final removal order? Could officers take a dangerous person into custody when the law permits it? Where would that person be held? Which agency would investigate crimes now handled by the organizations Ramirez wants abolished?
A promise to create a department is not a plan for what happens when its officers must act.
Ramirez put an enormous dollar figure on the announcement, estimating that at least $150 billion in DHS funding could be redirected to communities and working families.
“At least $150 billion.”
Representative Delia Ramirez’s preliminary funding estimate
Where would the money come from? Over what period? How much is already committed? What would it cost to maintain the functions she says she would preserve? Without a filed bill and its funding provisions, voters cannot check her arithmetic.
Illinois taxpayers have reason to insist on doing exactly that. The state auditor general found that health benefit programs for certain immigrants, including people without lawful immigration status, cost far more than first projected. Chicago has separately spent public funds serving new arrivals. Its cost dashboard publishes totals, but residents still must work through categories and records to understand what was purchased and who received it.
These are distinct programs, and their costs should be kept distinct. The point is that Illinois residents have seen what happens when a government promise comes with a price tag that demands closer inspection. Ramirez is now asking them to consider a vastly larger funding shift without the filed text needed to inspect it.
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Bob Grogan said Chicago residents, including Black residents, had told him that grants and programs their communities relied on lost out as governments spent money on migrant care. He rejected the idea that community programs could do the work of federal security agencies.
“We can't keep America safe from terrorists with just another group hug.”
Bob Grogan, Illinois Republican Party chairman
Grogan blamed Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson for failures in local services. His sharpest challenge to Ramirez is simpler: If ICE and CBP are gone, the duties do not disappear with their signs. Who performs them?
That question has particular force in Illinois. The state already debates whether its pretrial detention rules give courts enough power to hold people who present a danger. A state release decision and federal immigration custody involve different laws and authorities. But when a state court releases someone whom federal officers have grounds to hold, Ramirez must explain what her proposed federal system would allow those officers to do.
Her record gives voters another reason to demand specifics. Ramirez’s separate Melt ICE Act, introduced in January, proposed removing immigration detention authority from several parts of federal law, ending detention contracts, and developing a plan to move people off ankle monitors. It has not become law. On Wednesday, Ramirez moved from that detention proposal to a plan to dismantle DHS itself, yet again asked the public to react before it could examine the new legislation.
Was the news conference about a finished, workable policy? Or was the announcement itself the point? Ramirez is the person best positioned to answer. Filing the bill would be a start.
She and her supporters allege abuses by DHS and argue that shifting money into housing, health care, and other services would make communities safer. Those claims require evidence. Even proven misconduct would call for a clear remedy; it would not explain, on its own, why abolishing ICE and CBP is the right one. The public deserves to see how Ramirez would prevent abuse and carry out federal law.
The reaction has hardly been unanimous praise.
“Funny, the Dems loved it when they were in power!”
John Hencken, Facebook comment supplied to FactsFirstus.com
“It has zero chance of passing and would be vitoed anyway”
Igor Ekshtayn, Facebook comment supplied to FactsFirstus.com
“Get rid of dept of Homeland Security. Why would they want that?”
Sherry Engess Kosabucki, Facebook comment supplied to FactsFirstus.com
A bill need not pass to reveal a politician’s priorities. Ramirez has told Americans what she wants to abolish, offered a vast funding estimate, and invited them to trust that a new department will make them safer. She has yet to give them the complete bill that would let them test that promise.
Ramirez got her headline. The public got an outline. The officer facing the next dangerous case will need something neither can provide: clear legal authority and a place to take the person in custody. If Ramirez cannot show who answers that call under her plan, she has no business asking Illinois families to call it safety.
Official sources:
Representative Ramirez’s September 23 announcement and summary of the Reimagining Safety Act.
Representative Ramirez’s September statement concerning DHS authority.
Representative Ramirez’s announcement and summary of the separate Melt ICE Act.
Illinois auditor general’s review of the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults and Seniors programs.
Secondary sources:
FactsFirstus.com’s September 22 report, “She Calls It ‘Reimagining Safety.’ At Whose Expense?”.
Facebook comments attributed to John Hencken, Igor Ekshtayn, and Sherry Engess Kosabucki, as supplied to FactsFirstus.com.
