DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin slammed Illinois Squad Democrat Delia Ramirez over her bill to abolish ICE and gut Homeland Security, saying she puts illegal immigrants ahead of Americans.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and a department spokesperson tore into Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., over legislation that would dismantle most of the Department of Homeland Security and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The progressive “Squad” member’s Reimagining Safety Act would scrap ICE and Customs and Border Protection, create a new “Department of Community Safety,” and start building a separate civil immigration system. Mullin made clear the Trump administration will not go along.
In comments reported on the clash, Mullin drew a hard line against the push to defund and abolish core security agencies.
"Radical leftists are calling to defund the police and abolish DHS. It’s NEVER going to happen. Our 270,000 DHS patriots are keeping Americans SAFE, unlike this open-borders politician who refuses to prioritize Americans over illegal aliens,"
Ramirez fired back, framing the bill as accountability rather than a retreat from enforcement.
Under the Reimagining Safety Act, ICE would be abolished outright. So would Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with stopping illegal crossings at the southern border.
The measure would still keep the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Coast Guard, and customs functions. Those pieces would sit inside the new Department of Community Safety while the rest of DHS as Americans know it would be torn down.
Ramirez cast the overhaul in sweeping moral terms.
"Every day, Americans wake up with a new reason to dismantle DHS, reimagine safety, and build something that honors our shared humanity."
She added that people have the power to reshape government away from what she called a “weapon” and toward “the best parts of who we are and can be.”
That language tracks a broader progressive push that has grown louder in recent months. Democrat calls to abolish ICE swelled after agents shot a Venezuelan national in Austin, Texas, and after earlier backlash over the deaths of two U.S. citizens involving federal immigration officials.
The same left flank has produced other high-profile progressive fights, including moments when Squad members collided in public view and forced their own allies to clean up the mess.
A DHS spokesperson said Ramirez should thank the officers working her home state, not attack them. The department pointed to illegal immigrants arrested in Illinois with serious prior convictions.
Among those named: Bulgarian national Rumen Georgriev, convicted of rape with a weapon; Abdukadir Haji of Somalia, convicted of sex assault and rape; and Cuban national Samuel Reyes-Silva, convicted of robbery and homicide.
The spokesperson did not mince words about the tone coming from sanctuary politicians.
"While sanctuary politicians smear ICE, law enforcement is arresting criminals and saving countless American lives."
Ramirez, the spokesperson said, “should be thanking our law enforcement for removing these dangerous criminals from her district, NOT vilifying law enforcement.”
That warning sits against a rising cost for the people doing the work. The same spokesperson tied the rhetoric to a more than 1,300% increase in assaults on officers “as they put their lives on the line.”
Questions about how rapists and violent offenders face justice without strong policing are not abstract on the activist left. A DSA delegate recently dodged that exact problem when pressed on a world without police or prisons.
Mullin’s message was simple: the 270,000 people inside DHS are protecting the country, and bills like Ramirez’s do the opposite. He labeled her an open-borders politician who will not put Americans first.
Ramirez answered by accusing the secretary and the department of “cheap lies and fearmongering” meant to save face. She said dismantling DHS is how critics “hold them accountable, stop corruption, and end their lawlessness.”
"Markwayne and DHS will keep spreading cheap lies and fearmongering in a desperate attempt to save face because dismantling DHS and building something new is part of how we hold them accountable, stop corruption, and end their lawlessness,"
The clash fits a longer pattern. Mullin has already pushed back hard when progressive Democrats claim most immigration arrests target people who pose no public safety threat, a line he rejected in a separate fight with Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Inside the Democratic Party, the socialist-aligned wing keeps testing how far the institution will bend. A DSA-backed challenger just ousted a sitting House Democrat in Michigan, another sign the progressive insurgency is not slowing down.
Strip away the slogans and the text is blunt. Abolish ICE. Abolish CBP. Stand up a Department of Community Safety. Keep a handful of legacy agencies. Begin a separate civil immigration system.
CBP’s core job is keeping the southern border clear of illegal crossings. Removing that agency while sanctuary rhetoric rises is not a technical tweak. It is a choice about whether the border remains a real line or a suggestion.
DHS used the Illinois arrests to make the stakes concrete. The people removed from Ramirez’s state were not cited for paperwork errors. The department listed rape, sex assault, robbery, and homicide convictions.
When politicians call for abolition while agents face a reported surge in assaults, the incentive structure is plain. Officers take the risk. Communities live with the results. The members of Congress who target the agencies rarely absorb the cost.
Ramirez’s own words put “shared humanity” and “taking care of each other” at the center of the rewrite. Mullin’s reply put American safety first and rejected the premise that DHS itself is the problem to be dismantled.
Those two frames cannot both govern the border. One treats enforcement as the threat. The other treats open borders and soft-on-crime politics as the threat. The Trump DHS team has chosen its side in public, with names, numbers, and a flat refusal to abolish the agencies that still do the hard work.
Taxpayers and lawful residents should not have to guess which approach keeps their neighborhoods safer.
