About 25 years ago, the Department of Homeland Security was established in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Chicago) said its created with an "over-broad mission and unchecked power."
"It was created as a result of trauma without actually including community to ensure that was a department that would in fact protect the homeland and therefore every single person in it," she said.
Ramirez, who has been an outspoken critic of DHS, ICE and the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, said since, the Department has turned into a "weapon" used against immigrants.
Now, she said, it's time for an alternative.
"We know that an agency that was established to violate our rights under the pretense of securing our safety cannot be reformed," she said. "It must be dismantled piece by piece and something new, a system that actually honors our humanity, our dignity must be built."
That's why Ramirez is announcing the Reimagining Safety Act, community-led legislation that calls for for dismantling DHS and abolishing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Instead, she said funds would be redirected to social services.
"We're reinvesting funds in our community. We're limiting state surveillance," she said. "We're reigning unlawful abuses of data and curbing the militarized enforcement. We're beginning the process of establishing a separate civil immigration system."
She said she plans to formally introduce the legislation in the next few weeks.
"The people have the power to reshape our government and to reimagine how we cultivate safety and the collective well-being," she said. "We have a vision and a plan, a community-led roadmap to build an agency that respects all of us and keeps us safe."
