Rep. Delia Ramirez, the Illinois Democrat aligned with the progressive House "Squad," has introduced legislation that would abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security outright — a proposal the Trump administration is denouncing as the most radical immigration plan to reach Congress.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin fired back hard at the bill, describing the effort as an attempt to erase the nation's border enforcement infrastructure at the moment it is finally being used to secure the southern border.
What the Bill Would Do
According to the proposal, Ramirez's legislation targets three pillars of federal immigration enforcement: ICE, CBP, and the broader department that houses both. The plan would not merely reform or restructure the agencies — it would eliminate them.
The timing is notable. The bill arrives as the Trump-Vance administration is carrying out the mass deportation operation that formed the centerpiece of the 2024 campaign, with border crossings down and enforcement ramped up after four years of what Republicans call the Biden administration's open-border policies.
Mullin: This Is the 'Most Radical' Plan Yet
Mullin, who has been among the administration's most vocal defenders of aggressive immigration enforcement, responded sharply to the proposal, calling it the most radical plan targeting ICE to date. For an administration that has watched Democrats push defund-the-police style campaigns against federal law enforcement for years, the assessment reflects a line that has now been crossed in plain view.
The Department of Homeland Security was created in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, consolidating 22 federal agencies under one roof. ICE and CBP were both established in 2003 as part of that reorganization. Abolishing them would represent the largest rollback of federal homeland security architecture in American history.
A 'Squad' Pattern, Not a One-Off
Ramirez's legislation follows years of progressive calls to defund or eliminate ICE, a position that mainstream Democrats once strained to distance themselves from. As the party's base has moved left, those calls have moved from the fringes of social media activism to formal bills filed in Congress.
Republicans argue that abolishing ICE and CBP would functionally open the border, since no other federal agency is currently chartered to perform interior immigration enforcement or customs inspections at scale. The White House and its allies have pointed to the administration's deportation numbers and reduced border encounters as proof that enforcement works — and that the left's endgame is to make it impossible.
What It Means for Americans
The practical stakes reach well past immigration politics. ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit handles child exploitation, human trafficking, gang and cartel investigations, and transnational crime. CBP processes more than a million travelers a day and seizes fentanyl and other narcotics at ports of entry. DHS runs FEMA, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and TSA.
For families in border states and interior cities alike, eliminating those agencies would mean no federal deportation apparatus, no port screening system, and no unified homeland security department — a fact Republican lawmakers intend to hammer home as the bill gets attention.
It is not yet known whether House Democratic leadership will bring the legislation to a vote, or how many co-sponsors it will attract. Republicans are already signaling they want the bill's details on the record heading into the 2026 midterms.
Our Take
Let's call this what it is. This is not an oversight bill. It's not a reform proposal. It is a demand, in writing, from a sitting member of Congress, to shut down the agencies that keep criminal illegal aliens out of your neighborhoods and fentanyl out of your communities — and she wants you to know she means it.
The left spent years claiming "abolish ICE" was a fringe slogan. Now it is a bill. Ramirez and her allies have handed Republicans the single best campaign document of the cycle: a straightforward, on-the-record plan to gut border enforcement while the Trump administration is finally using it. Every voter who cares about the border — and that's most of them — should read it.
Mullin's response is the right one. The administration should not run from this fight; it should drag it into the light. Force every Democrat to say on camera whether they support eliminating ICE, CBP and DHS. Make them defend it in front of the families of fentanyl victims in their own districts. Then let the voters decide in November.
The question isn't whether this bill can pass. It can't while Republicans hold the House. The question is why any American would vote for a party that wrote it.
