Weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms, Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez has made an accelerated effort to put immigration reform at the forefront of the conversation. She says the federal raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home should worry everyone.
At 4:30 a.m. Monday, Homeland Security Investigations searched Omar’s Washington home as part of what the Justice Department called a "federal criminal investigation" into decades-old paperwork. Agents took her phone, two sources told CBS News, and her relatives have been issued subpoenas.
In a statement on social media, Omar called it an "outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies." Her office has said she has "done nothing wrong." President Trump told reporters he "had nothing to do with" the raid.
Ramirez told CBS News Chicago that the early-morning raid pressured her to file the "Reimagining Safety Act" this week, a bill that would abolish the Department of Homeland Security and transform it into a cabinet-level Department of Community Safety. Ramirez first announced the bill at a Sept. 23 news conference in Chicago, CBS Chicago reported. According to that report, it would also abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
"What happened to my colleague and my sister, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, is bone-chilling," she said, calling it an abuse of power against "political enemies" of the president.
Ramirez is worried about the broader implications and the precedent this sets for her constituents and everyone living in the U.S.
"It should scare everyone, because if they’re willing and able to do that to Ilhan Omar, they can do it to anyone," she said.
"They’re not stopping. We need to stop them," Ramirez said.
Ramirez, 43, who is the child of two Guatemalan immigrants, shared her own fears.
"I’m human, and it’s actually why this work is so personal to me and why I am so persistent," she said. "But it doesn’t mean I don’t worry."
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Ramirez has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump. She said she is sometimes nervous about what an administration "obsessed with targeting people with whom they disagree" could try to do to her, and that it is why she continues to raise the alarm about her colleagues.
Ramirez also stood alongside local and national immigration and civil rights groups at a press conference to introduce the "People’s Vision for Immigration Reform," a platform to preserve and expand pathways to citizenship.
The resolution has 19 congressional co-sponsors and the backing of 54 civil and immigration rights organizations. The press conference, held at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights office, was packed with representatives from local and national advocacy groups.
"We’ve seen the consequences of the inability of Congress to prioritize legislation and the overreach of the Trump administration that has taken a sledgehammer to refugee admissions, temporary protected status, healthcare, food access, and due process," said Lawrence Benito, the coalition’s executive director.
He said the coalition was formed 40 years ago, in direct response to the last time Congress, under then-President Ronald Reagan, enacted major immigration reform legislation. It has helped hundreds of thousands of people prepare applications and gain access to citizenship, and has helped pass numerous pro-immigrant state-level laws.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was the last sweeping, multifaceted overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. It created a pathway to citizenship for more than 2.7 million people and strengthened border protection.
Representation was broad, from Korean to African organizations, as well as the ACLU of Illinois.
"Immigration policy can be based on a commitment to family unification, fairness, and due process, and recognize the dignity and worth of people from other countries," said Ed Yohnka, director of communications for the ACLU of Illinois.
The 71-page bill proposes how and where to redistribute DHS’s funds and responsibilities across other departments, including the creation of the Department of Community Safety.
The bill would preserve FEMA and cybersecurity functions within the new Department of Community Safety, while moving immigration enforcement back to the Department of Justice, which initially oversaw it before the Sept. 11 attacks. Customs functions would move to the Department of the Treasury, and the TSA and Coast Guard to the Department of Transportation.
The bill would also redirect DHS funds into Medicare for All, housing and education. It would also limit government surveillance, rein in what Ramirez called "unlawful abuses of data," and curb militarized enforcement.
The bill has fewer than seven co-sponsors and faces long odds in a Republican-controlled Congress that is out of session until after the Nov. 3 midterms.
The National Republican Congressional Committee called the legislation "utterly insane."
"The radical socialist agenda for the Democrat Party is on full display, and it’s utterly insane," committee spokesman Mike Marinella said. "Democrats are rolling out the welcome mat for criminals and cartels, and expecting Americans to go along."
Some moderate Democrats, such as Rahm Emanuel, also think abolishing ICE goes too far. Ramirez said border work would continue.
"I’m not saying that there’s no work in the border," she said to CBS News Chicago. "The work of the border needs to be done by the Department of Treasury, as we know that at ports of entry, we are handling and managing imports and exports all the time," she said, referencing drugs and guns.
Abolishing ICE has become a campaign issue for many candidates, most notably Juliana Stratton, who won her primary running on it, compared to her competitor Raja Krishnamoorthi’s call to "abolish Trump’s ICE." A January Economist/YouGov poll found 46% of Americans support abolishing ICE, compared to 43% who oppose it.
"What is radical about calling out and dismantling an agency that is less than 23 years old? An agency that has proven to us for the last 23 years that it cannot be trusted with our tax dollars to protect people. That is now the biggest threat to the homeland," she said.
Both Ramirez and the community groups emphasized that this issue did not start or end with Mr. Trump, and called on Congress to be more courageous and reassert its power.
"The fact that Ronald Reagan, in November of 1986, passed the bill that established some form of immigration reform, and that neither Democrats nor Republicans have been able to do anything since then, tells us that the only permanent safety for people in this country is actually a roadmap," Ramirez said.
"But really it’s the bills that we have to actually pass in Congress that actually get to legal pathways, so people don’t have to go through a border, or experience what they’ve experienced," she said.
Even with that push, Ramirez said it all comes down to people’s advocacy.
"The community is ready," she said. "And it’s the community that’s going to lead the charge — whether it’s to dismantle DHS, or to actually get this Congress to give a damn and actually do something about immigration reform."
Region: Chicago,Politics,City: Chicago
via Politics – CBS Chicago https://ift.tt/iOUj9WC
October 15, 2026 at 05:07PM
