Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), who has declared herself a “proud anchor baby,” is not the first Democrat to introduce legislation that would abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But her Reimagining Safety Act is the most comprehensive. Voters should pay close attention to its details because they offer a preview of how Democrats could reshape immigration enforcement if they win control of Congress this November.
Unlike Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who has introduced legislation that would dissolve ICE over 12 months and then create a commission to recommend how its functions should be handled, Ramirez’s Reimagining Safety Act dismantles the entire Department of Homeland Security, ending some functions entirely and moving others to different departments.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and customs functions would be placed in the newly established Department of Community Safety, while the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard would go to the Transportation Department. ICE and Customs and Border Protection would be eliminated. Aside from moving customs enforcement to the new Department of Community Safety, none of the functions performed by ICE or CBP would any longer be performed by the federal government. All of the money appropriated for ICE and CBP would be redirected to social services.
“Building something new, creating in a time of destruction, is a revolutionary act,” Ramirez said at a Wednesday press conference. “I am here to remind us that a different world is in fact possible.”
So true. What would a world without ICE or the Border Patrol look like?
Instead of migrants who illegally enter the United States being arrested and detained, the offenders would be given citations, like traffic tickets, to appear in immigration court. As extreme as this policy is in its abdication of national sovereignty, it is by no means a minority position in the Democratic Party.
In 2019, during the Democratic presidential primary, moderator Jose Diaz-Balart asked candidates Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Eric Swalwell, and Andrew Yang to raise their hands if they thought crossing the border without proper documentation should be a civil offense rather than a crime. Only Bennet kept his hand down.
Once in the country, illegal immigrants would be free to pursue asylum claims through the new civil immigration court system that Ramirez’s bill would establish. Migrants who won their cases would be given a green card and a path to citizenship. Migrants who lost their cases would be able to stay here indefinitely because there would be no law enforcement agency to take them into custody and deport them. In other words, migrants who lost their cases could effectively decide for themselves whether to remain in the U.S. So much for Democrats standing up for democracy.
There are about 8 billion people in the world. It’s a good guess that a sizable proportion of them would prefer to live here rather than where they are now. The result would be a tidal wave of migrants flooding every community in the nation. No neighborhood would be safe because the Supreme Court ruled more than a decade ago that state and local law enforcement have no authority to enforce federal immigration law.
These consequences are not oversights. They are the result these Democrats want. As Democratic House candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier has explained, “A world without borders, just like a world without prisons or police, is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward.”
Would such a world without borders be good for Americans? Ramirez doesn’t say and obviously doesn’t care. She flat-out said last year, “I am proudly Guatemalan before I am American.”
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Abolishing ICE is no fringe position in the Democratic Party. In the House, Reps. Jayapal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Shri Thanedar (D-MI) have called for the agency’s elimination. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) has said Congress must “defund and abolish ICE.” Democratic Senate nominees Juliana Stratton, Peggy Flanagan, Abdul el Sayed, and Troy Jackson have also called for its abolition.
Voters should treat the Reimagining Safety Act as a preview, not a thought experiment. Abolishing ICE means abolishing the border. That is the future Democrats want. They don’t like America and are proposing laws that would, in practical terms, expunge it.