Ramirez, Civil Society, & Community Leaders Announce Community-led Legislation to Dismantle DHS, Abolish ICE, Reimagine Community Safety
Chicago, IL – Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03), Ranking Member of a Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee, stood with Illinois public officials, civil society, and community members to announce the Reimagining Safety Act. The landmark community-led legislation would create a new human- and community-centered federal department that promotes collective safety, repeal the authorities that give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) its power, and redirect DHS funds to programs that working families rely on.
The Reimagining Safety Act is a first-of-its-kind bill that would dismantle DHS. It is the first time a community has designed a cabinet-level department. The Reimagining Safety Act would:
Establish the Department of Community Safety
Dismantle DHS, preserving CISA, FEMA, TSA, and Customs functions
Abolish ICE and CBP
Reinvest funds in our communities
Limit government surveillance, rein in unlawful abuses of data, and curb militarized enforcement
Begin the process of establishing a separate civil immigration system
“Today, I am proud to announce the Reimagining Safety Act, a community-led roadmap to establish the Department of Community Safety, dismantle DHS, abolish ICE and CBP, and reinvest resources in our communities,” said Congresswoman Ramirez. “The Department of Homeland Security was founded out of a profound national trauma. But we cannot add new pains to old ones. We must heal old pain and create new opportunities.”
For more than a year, the communities that Congresswoman Ramirez represents have been targeted, terrorized, and attacked by DHS through its unlawful mass deportation campaign. Those same communities worked to build the Reimagining Safety Act while protecting their neighbors through Know Your Rights campaigns, observer networks, whistles and cell phones, human school buses, and more.
“Since the creation of DHS, the Muslim community in Chicagoland, and America broadly, has been directly, intensely, and unjustly targeted by the department. DHS' profiling has dissolved any sense of privacy and has sought to silence and remove the Muslim community,” said Jordan Esparza-Kelley, Communications Coordinator at CAIR Chicago. “This legislative effort, led by the Congresswoman, was able to call in directly impacted communities, and reimagine safety and national security from a framework of love, care, and tolerance. Legislation such as the Reimagining Safety Act can change and save lives; it can help us truly be who we say we are as a country.”