Hard-left Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is once again drawing attention for her outspoken views on federal immigration enforcement — this time openly discussing abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and dismantling the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaking at a town hall on Wednesday night, Omar was asked directly by an audience member, “How do we get ICE out of America?”
Omar did not hesitate in her response.
“What I will say is that there is a easier conversation happening today than six, seven years ago, when I got to Congress, about what we need to do with ICE, which is to abolish it,” she replied.
She went further, raising the prospect of breaking apart the Department of Homeland Security itself.
“There is a lot of conversation about what the dismantlement of the Department of Homeland Security should look like,” Omar said, arguing that the agencies combined under DHS “do not have accountability in the way that that formation exists.”
Omar suggested that unless the country returns to a pre-2002 structure — before DHS was formed — lawmakers should pursue “a different system” that, in her view, would operate without what she described as “this level of brutality that we are seeing.” She added that the current system results in “little children” being afraid of federal agents carrying out their duties, saying those agents “ended up terrorizing whole communities.”
The Department of Homeland Security was created in direct response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — the deadliest foreign attack on American soil in history. Nearly 3,000 people were killed and more than 6,000 were injured when 19 hijackers, primarily Saudi nationals linked to al-Qaeda and orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, seized four commercial airplanes.
Two of those planes struck the World Trade Center towers in New York City. A third crashed into the Pentagon. The fourth went down in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to retake control from the hijackers. The attacks exposed major gaps in intelligence coordination and aviation security.
Within a month, President George W. Bush established the Office of Homeland Security. In 2002, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, formally authorizing the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS began operations on March 1, 2003, consolidating 22 federal agencies and roughly 180,000 employees under one umbrella in what was the most significant federal reorganization since 1947.
The department was designed to centralize counterterrorism efforts, strengthen border security by unifying Customs and Border Protection and ICE, improve intelligence sharing to prevent future attacks, and integrate emergency response operations, including FEMA.
Today, DHS employs approximately 260,000 people. While initially focused on preventing another 9/11-style attack, its mission has expanded over the years to include cybersecurity and responsibilities related to election integrity.
Despite ongoing political debates over immigration policy and asylum enforcement, DHS remains the federal government’s central agency for integrated homeland defense. Supporters argue that the department plays a critical role in ensuring the United States is better prepared to address both foreign and domestic threats.
Omar’s remarks highlight a growing divide over the future of federal immigration enforcement and homeland security — a debate that touches on some of the most consequential national security decisions made in the aftermath of 9/11.
