SHE CALLS IT “REIMAGINING SAFETY.” AT WHOSE EXPENSE?

September 23, 2026•5 min read

SHE CALLS IT “REIMAGINING SAFETY.” AT WHOSE EXPENSE?

Ramirez is reportedly preparing to abolish ICE after proposing an end to immigration detention. Illinois families are still waiting to hear who would enforce the law when someone refuses to obey it.

By FactsFirstus.com Staff Writer | September 22, 2026

Election season is when politicians give their most ambitious ideas their most comforting names.

Representative Delia Ramirez has chosen Reimagining Safety. According to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin’s report, she plans to hold a Chicago news conference Wednesday morning to introduce legislation that would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security.

“Dismantle DHS” and “abolish ICE.”
Bill Melugin, reporting on Ramirez’s planned announcement

Melugin reported that Ramirez’s proposal would shift DHS funding toward programs for working families and create a new federal department built around what she calls collective safety. The full bill text was not available when this story was written. What powers that new department would have remains the question her announcement must answer.

Ramirez’s earlier proposal shows why that question is urgent. Her Melt ICE Act, introduced in January, would remove immigration detention authority from several provisions of federal law, end detention contracts within two years, prohibit new ones, and require a plan to move immigrants off ankle monitors.

That is a detailed plan to take away the government’s ability to hold people under immigration law. Where is the equally detailed plan for dealing with someone who presents a demonstrated danger or refuses to comply with a final removal order?

Some readers responding to Melugin’s Facebook post went straight to that concern. In comments provided for this story, Karen Todd wrote:

“I hope she redirects her security fund as well.”
Karen Todd, Facebook reply to Bill Melugin

The sarcasm has a point. An elected official would expect someone to provide security if she faced a credible threat. Illinois families are asking what protection remains when federal officers face an individual case requiring custody.

Jim Hurley made the same objection through an analogy:

“I heard they're also holding a press conference tomorrow for drug dealers to abolish the DEA.”
Jim Hurley, Facebook reply to Bill Melugin

Abolishing an agency does not abolish the conduct it was assigned to address. If Ramirez intends to transfer ICE’s essential duties to another department, the public needs to see which duties, which officers, and which legal authorities would survive. If she intends to end those duties, she should say that plainly.

The stakes are not confined to a debate in Washington.

Sheridan Gorman was 18 years old. The Loyola University Chicago freshman went to the lakefront with friends to see the northern lights. Police say a masked gunman approached their group and opened fire. Sheridan was shot in the head and died at the scene.

Jose Medina-Medina has been charged with her murder. According to DHS, authorities had released him twice: after Border Patrol apprehended him in May 2023 and after Chicago police arrested him for shoplifting the following month. Neither was a release after a violent crime charge. Federal prosecutors later charged him with unlawful firearm possession.

Ramirez’s bill did not cause Sheridan’s death. Those two releases nevertheless show why a proposal to remove detention authority deserves more than a slogan. When authorities encounter someone subject to immigration enforcement, who can take custody, and under what circumstances?

Megan Bos’s case presses the question further. Her body was found in a storage container behind a Waukegan home. Jose Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez was charged with concealing her death, abusing her corpse, and obstructing justice. A state judge released him under pretrial monitoring. ICE later took him into custody.

Mendoza-Gonzalez has not been charged with murdering Bos. The coroner classified her cause of death as undetermined. The established sequence still matters: The state released him. Federal immigration officers then acted. Ramirez has failed to explain what would happen in a comparable case if the detention authority targeted by her bill were removed.

Her January proposal reaches law that addresses detention on specified criminal and security grounds. She wants to redirect ICE funding toward housing, health care, and community organizations. Those services may help people in need. They cannot hold an individual who presents a serious risk. They cannot execute a removal order.

Ramirez has spoken plainly about what she wants to dismantle. 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

Every authority. It is difficult to imagine a clearer statement of intent.

A third commenter, Jenna Redstone, pushed back against criticism of Ramirez’s birthplace: “None of us can help where we are born; that’s not on her.” She was right to separate that personal attack from a debate about the bill. Ramirez should be judged by what she proposes to do with federal authority.

Congress can investigate misconduct and fix the detention oversight failures identified by federal watchdogs. It can make the lawful immigration process work better and enforce its decisions. Ramirez has instead proposed stripping detention from broad portions of immigration law and is reportedly preparing to abolish the agency charged with much of its enforcement.

The response from Lisa Bukowski to the planned announcement was brief: “Sounds like there's an Election somewhere.” Her skepticism is understandable. Election season rewards memorable names and dramatic announcements. Good law must survive the moment after the cameras leave.

A state court releases someone. Federal officers believe that person must be held. What law gives them authority to act under Ramirez’s plan, and where would they take that person?

That is the question beneath Reimagining Safety. Ramirez has made her case for tearing down the current system. Until she can answer what replaces it in the hardest cases, Illinois families have reason to ask who will bear the cost of her vision.

Official sources: