Delia Ramirez

Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) leads a press conference opposing President Donald 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

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.

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 affor