Republicans say the Democratic Party wants to open the border. When the Democratic National Committee voted in August to call for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said Democrats "will pay for choosing open borders over public safety, border security, and backing the blue." Profoundd found no Democratic Party plan to stop guarding the border. But the party's left wing has gone further on immigration enforcement than at any point since 2019, and one proposal now on the table would abolish the agency that runs the Border Patrol without saying who would take over its work.
What the DNC voted for
The DNC's resolution, adopted in August alongside a competing one from party chair Ken Martin that calls only for reforming ICE, urges Democrats in Congress "to craft legislation abolishing ICE and enacting immigration reform that provides pathways to citizenship, protects workers, and ensures dignity for all impacted people." It goes beyond ICE's offices. It calls for ending immigration detention, declaring that "no person should be caged for a civil matter," ending private detention contracts, and restricting Homeland Security funding unless the department ends workplace raids, courthouse arrests and enforcement near schools and houses of worship. It also asks Congress to pursue civil and criminal accountability for officials who lied about the department's conduct and "to remove qualified immunity and other protections," the legal shields against personal lawsuits. The resolution is not binding, and the excerpts and summaries published so far do not mention the Border Patrol, which is part of a different agency. Martin said Democrats are united against the Trump administration's enforcement tactics even where they disagree on whether to abolish ICE or change it.
The proposal that reaches the border
On September 23, Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois, the senior Democrat on a House Homeland Security subcommittee, announced the Reimagining Safety Act. In her words, it would "establish the Department of Community Safety, dismantle DHS, abolish ICE and CBP, and reinvest resources in our communities." Her office's summary says the bill would keep the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity, disaster-relief, airport-screening and customs functions, abolish ICE and Customs and Border Protection, "begin the process of establishing a separate civil immigration system," and redirect at least $150 billion to programs such as health care, housing and food assistance. The Border Patrol is part of CBP. The summary does not say which agency, if any, would patrol the border between official crossings. Profoundd found no bill number or list of co-sponsors on record; Ramirez said she would take the proposal to Congress. In January she introduced the Melt ICE Act, which would end funding for immigration detention and monitoring.
How far the rest of the party has gone
Ramirez is not typical of her party. NBC News reported last December that "in most cases, Democrats have held back from calling for the outright abolition of ICE," and that most "emphasize the need for a secure border and support deportations that target criminals." But some candidates moved early. "It's time to abolish ICE," Patty Garcia said when she launched her campaign for an Illinois House seat, and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner said, "Organizations that are used to kidnap Americans are not organizations that should exist in the future." Profoundd found no Democrat in Congress or major candidate in 2025 or 2026 proposing to decriminalize illegal border crossings, which most of the party's 2020 presidential candidates pledged to do in a 2019 debate.
The order of events matters for a debate about whether the DNC leads its candidates. Here the candidates moved first: the calls to abolish ICE came in 2025, the DNC followed in August 2026, and Ramirez's proposal went further a month later. Whether any of it becomes law depends on the next Congress. None of it has passed.
Sources: Rep. Delia Ramirez's office, September 23, 2026, and WTVO, September 24, 2026; text of the DNC resolution as quoted by the Capitalism Institute and the Epoch Times wire, August 2026; The Federalist, August 17, 2026; NBC News, December 11, 2025; PBS NewsHour, 2019.
