Rep. Delia Ramirez is expected to introduce a bill to abolish the Department of Homeland Security and eliminate all immigrant detention in the United States on Tuesday, the Illinois Democrat shared exclusively with The Intercept.
The Reimagining Safety Act would repeal “duplicative and overreaching terrorism laws,” according to the bill summary and text, and curtail the widespread surveillance state that emerged in the wake of 9/11 terror attacks.
It comes the day after agents from Homeland Security Investigations searched the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in what the Department of Justice has described as an opaque “federal criminal investigation.” HSI is a component of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the agency at the center of mounting concerns about the violent weaponization of DHS against immigrants and the Trump administration’s perceived political enemies.
The sweeping legislation faces long odds in Congress, but Ramirez argues that strictly limiting the government’s immigration enforcement apparatus is critical for public safety in the wake of yet another shooting by federal immigration agents.
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No party is more progressive than Democrats when they know their bills have absolutely no hope in hell of passing.
It’s not the party, though. There are progressive members of the party, and when they introduce bills like this, the rest of the Democrats cough uncomfortably, and sidle away quietly, leaving the brave progressive to bear the full brunt of the right-wing outrage machine. (See, for example, the Green New Deal.)
Would it not make more sense to bring it early next year though? Then it goes from a 0% chance of being enacted to a .05% chance
Get the buzz going now to force the issue when they can, because you can’t move the overton window without speaking out about it.