Delia Ramirez Wants Democrats to Meet the Moment

Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., leads a press conference opposing President Trump's deployment of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers to combat crime on the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, and other American cities. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Appearing on CBS’ 60 Minutes on Sunday, President Donald Trump acknowledged that his immigration crackdown had been “too tough” and could have hurt Republicans in a midterm election that gave Democrats control of both chambers of Congress. The president said he’d “love to do something on immigration.” When asked what a deal with the Democratic majority could look like, he revealed the self-interest behind his softer rhetoric. “When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress…and all of a sudden they’re being taken out of the country, it’s tough,” he said. “But there’s a group of people that I would say on the sort of pretty far right that would like everybody taken out.” One of those people, of course, is the very man Trump promoted on Friday to serve as his chief of staff: Stephen Miller. “I introduced a bill to dismantle DHS, and I intend to dismantle DHS from the inside.” “It feels like gaslighting,” Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois told Mother Jones during a video call on Tuesday. “It’s mind-boggling to me that a president will say, ‘I just lost an election,’ that perhaps his immigration policies have gone too far, he mentions some of the people that he has benefited from—like the hotel workers in his own hotels—and that maybe he should do something about it, and is interested in working with Democrats on immigration reform—while, concurrently, he has a man who’s been the architect of mass deportations and terror standing right behind him as his new chief of staff. Which one is it? Because the dissonance could not be greater than what we’re seeing.” Ramirez is vying to lead the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability. After winning reelection on November 3, she joined the chorus of Democrats pledging to investigate the Department of Homeland Security and immigration enforcement overreach. “Noem, Markwayne, Miller, Homan, Bovino, what’s up?” the congresswoman wrote on X. “Clear your schedule.” Noem, Markwayne, Miller, Homan, Bovino, what’s up? Clear your schedule.— Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (@repdeliaramirez) November 4, 2026 I spoke with Ramirez on Tuesday about what the new Congress should prioritize on immigration, what accountability for DHS could look like, how Democrats can regain voters’ trust to deliver on that issue, and why immigration reform and affordability are interconnected. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. The appointment of Stephen Miller to be Trump’s chief of staff doesn’t exactly signal that the administration is interested in changing course on its immigration policies, does it? Not when you have a man who has actively worked to terrorize immigrant communities and has celebrated white supremacy so publicly. It’s very difficult for us to see the president being able to lead in that way, because so many people have felt that Stephen Miller has been president in the shadows, and now he’s just got a promotion. I recognize that the president is not mentally stable and he may change his mind 20 times before we pass an immigration reform bill. We should not be legislating based on whatever the president will or will not veto. I would call his bluff. I would have Democrats pass the most comprehensive immigration reform bill that we possibly can, bringing out of the shadows the most people possible, and then send it to him, and have him decide what he wants to do with it. What I don’t want to do is negotiate ourselves down to something that we know is mediocre and is not going to meet the moment. This is a moment where I believe that every poll will show you that the American people want to see comprehensive immigration reform, and it could be the thing we do literally 40 years later, after the last thing we in fact passed in 1986. Voters delivered an undeniable rebuke of the Trump administration, including its immigration policies, resulting in a blue wave. Democrats, however, have been on the back foot on immigration, treating it as a liability, and voters have grown distrustful that Democrats can do better on that issue than the Trump administration. How should the party approach immigration—and message around it—going forward? What we saw during the midterm elections was a rebuke on Donald Trump, Republicans, and their horrifying policies of corruption, hate, deportation, intimidation, retaliation, and they’ve given us a mandate for bold change and justice. They said to Democrats, this is a rebuke against Republicans, and an opportunity for you to show me what you will do with this great mandate we have given you. Democrats must meet the moment, and meeting the moment means demanding justice for the horrors that people have lived, for the health care that they have lost, and the necessities that they can’t afford. That includes immigration reform and the ability for Democrats to stop apologizing for immigration and for immigrants, and start affirming that immigrants are a critical part of this nation, that immigrants stabilize our economies, and that we unapologetically fully stand with the immigrant community and the establishment of permanent protections for them—permanent pathways to citizenship, protections for those seeking asylum in this country—so that we stop obsessing over the border and actually protect people and their ability to enter this country, get the visas necessary, and reunite people who have been separated from their families for so long. We can, in fact, do that, and the American people want us to prove that we will. That means that we don’t sabotage ourselves. That means that we don’t sell ourselves short. And in the words of [Massachusetts Democratic Rep.] Ayanna Pressley, that we show what a majority can do—because mediocre policy changes will get us a 2024 repeat very quickly after. “The ultimate goal is to dismantle [ICE], and in the interim…we need to be clawing back every dollar that was given to them.” It sounds like you’re advocating for the party to embrace an affirmatively pro-immigrant agenda. That’s exactly right. It’s why I introduced a month ago the people’s vision for immigration reform. I wasn’t going to wait until after the elections. I wanted a roadmap that Democrats can point to as the solution and the way that they show the people that voted for the very first time and gave them this majority that they got it this time: That we will not make excuses, and we will have a positive, affirmative agenda as it pertains to immigration in this country. One that creates citizenship for the millions of people living in the shadows, establishes legal pathways, and creates and protects the ability for people to seek asylum in this country. Last year, Chicago was one of the epicenters of ICE’s crackdown with Operation Midway Blitz. You’ve been one of the most vocal US lawmakers calling for accountability for DHS. What does accountability look like in your mind? Let me start by saying that there is no affordability without accountability. Point blank. If you want to actually talk about why people are living and experiencing the challenges they are right now, whether it’s that they can’t afford to buy groceries, they can’t afford to drive to work or pick up their kids, or they can’t afford the rent or buy their home, or why they’re living in the shadows and their businesses are shutting down, there has to be accountability to the actors that have made that happen. And it also means accountability to those that have terrorized them. Yes, we should be passing Medicare for all. Yes, we need to pass a bill that increases wages in this country. Yes, we should abolish super PACs and tax the rich. But we also have to understand that, as we fight for an affordable country, we have to hold every fascist in this administration accountable. That includes [former DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem, who right now has a really good job doing nothing and getting paid a lot of money as a senior advisor in the State Department. It also means Markwayne Mullin, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, Tom Homan, Gregory Bovino. I could be here all day talking about all the actors that need to be held accountable, and it’s why, for me, it’s important for people to understand that resignations are not enough. They’re not going to save them from investigations, from impeachment, and accountability. As we now hold gavels, we have the power to issue subpoenas, hold officials in contempt, and request that the courts step in when they don’t show up to our hearings. It’s why I personally am pursuing the Homeland Security Oversight Subcommittee gavel. Because I believe that from there, where I’ve been doing oversight work the last four years since I’ve been in Congress, we’re going to be able to lead investigations into a number of things, including the use of federal funding to reward campaign donors, the medical neglect that we have seen in detention centers, the calls by Stephen Miller to ignore habeas corpus and the violation of due process, the empowerment of agents to act without accountability. Also, and we don’t say this enough, how FEMA, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Coast Guard, and TSA have been literally defunded and gutted to support the mass deportation campaign, and how illegal it is to take money from critical missions to move it into the obsession of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller [with] ICE and deportation. There’s plenty of work to be done. We have to be willing to use our power. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., holds signs as President Donald Trump delivered his address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, March 4, 2025.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP What do you think Democrats should prioritize going into the 120th Congress, and, specifically, what should the House subcommittee you’re seeking to lead focus on while there’s momentum? “There is no democracy if DHS continues to operate the way it does.” I introduced a bill to dismantle DHS, and I intend to dismantle DHS from the inside. Every investigation we do—whether it’s about detention, who is profiting at the expense of children who are literally in cages, or the expansion of these 287(g) agreements where local police [work] with federal agents to hunt down people—is critical to provide the evidence necessary to be able to bring the most justice. These investigations are not just about those that need to be behind bars, but ultimately that we create systemic changes. What people have said to us over and over is that yes, we want affordability and accountability, and in that accountability, what we want is for you to prove to us that you will do everything in your power so we’re never here again. People will say, well, DHS is not the only agency that has been problematic. Absolutely not. But there’s no other agency that has consolidated the amount of power that DHS has with the amount of money that DHS has in order to terrorize the American people and literally rob us from our civil rights, while at the same time saying that they’re doing it under the guise of protecting us from terrorism. There is no democracy if DHS continues to operate the way it does. For me, investigations must lead into reimagining something new, where we protect cybersecurity infrastructure, where we protect FEMA, where we protect TSA, where we protect the customs functions at the border, and where we abolish ICE and CBP and reinvest funds towards healthcare, community safety, and first responders. Since Trump’s return to the White House, Congress has given the administration nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars for immigration enforcement. What can a Democratic majority in Congress do about ICE spending, and to rein in the agency and slow down Trump’s mass deportation campaign? The ultimate goal is to dismantle this agency, and in the interim, while we build a case to dismantle it, we need to be clawing back every dollar that was given to them, whether through the “big ugly bill” or the reconciliation process we had a few months ago. What we need to be doing, and what I’ll be working with the Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the other caucuses [to do], is to begin defunding ICE and CBP by clawing back the money that was robbed from the American people and put into these campaigns of deportation and kidnapping and terror that have brought so much money and profit to those that are either buying stocks in detention or running these detention centers. I think we have a real opportunity to do so in the CR, the continuing resolution—to create an amendment that claws back that money. If we’re not able to get that done in the CR process before the year’s over, that [should] be a top priority of the new speaker in the first 100 days. Defund, claw back, redirect the money to CISA, to FEMA, to TSA, to USCIS, and to the office that is supposed to ensure accountability within DHS. What I’m saying is, Congress, do your job. We control the money and we control where the money goes. The term “immigration reform” is thrown around on both sides of the aisle, but any prospect of an immigration overhaul that resembles an actual reform seems far-fetched. Is the appetite there, particularly among newly elected members of Congress? Affordability necessitates immigration reform in this country. You cannot talk about economic stability in this country, protecting Social Security, protecting all the critical safety net programs, without understanding the intricacies of a broken immigration system and of the needs of the people. This is a moment where people in this Congress have been told by the American people what they want to see. That public opinion is demanding that we do something related to immigration, and that we pass immigration reform. We, Democrats, have less than a year to prove to the American people what we do with the vote that they gave us, and if the vote they gave us was worth it. It means that we fundamentally change the way we talk about immigration and immigrants in this country, and we start talking about all the good things related to immigration: [That] you can’t extend Social Security by 25 years or 30 years in this country if you don’t pass immigration reform. How you can double the amount of federal revenue we get in taxes if we pass immigration reform. How you can actually lift this country’s workforce by passing immigration reform. How you can create more labor union jobs in this country by passing immigration reform. How you can help children who are living in trauma in this moment recover by passing immigration reform. Democrats have to unapologetically, without a doubt, stand up for immigrants the way we stand up for abortion rights, the way we stand up for LGBT rights, and the way that we fight and say we stand up for our democracy. We can do that in this country and be successful, and the American people are waiting for that courage that we talk about to translate into action that they can feel. I’m hopeful. I have to be.