The Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) has endorsed proposed legislation to dismantle the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and replace it with a Department of Community Safety, citing fears over detention, deportation and family separation among Haitian immigrants.
The San Diego-based organisation said the Reimagining Safety Act, introduced by Illinois Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez, would also abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). HBA Executive Director Guerline Jozef told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Saturday that the organisation’s support reflected growing concerns about the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
She cited efforts to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 300,000 Haitian nationals, alongside intensified detention and deportation operations.
Jozef said the policies threatened to separate families and force people to return to Haiti despite the country’s humanitarian and security crises.
‘The Reimagining Safety Act offers an opportunity to fundamentally rethink a system that has caused enormous harm to immigrant communities,’ she said.
‘Safety cannot be achieved through fear; it must be grounded in dignity, due process, family unity, and the protection of human rights.’
Jozef commended Ramirez and the communities involved in developing the proposal, saying federal policy should prioritise human rights and community safety.
Ramirez, who represents Illinois’s 3rd Congressional District, said the legislation would repeal the authorities underpinning DHS and redirect its funding to programmes supporting working families.
She described the proposed replacement as a federal department centred on people and communities.
‘The Department of Homeland Security was founded out of a profound national trauma. But we cannot add new pains to old ones. We must heal old pain and create new opportunities,’ Ramirez said.
She said communities affected by immigration enforcement helped develop the bill while organising rights-awareness campaigns and networks to support their neighbours.
Illinois State Representative Norma Hernandez also backed the proposal, arguing that enforcement practices had disproportionately targeted Latino, immigrant, Black and Brown communities.
‘You cannot militarize our neighborhoods, surveil our families, and make people afraid to leave their homes and call that safety,’ she said.
State Senator Graciela Guzman said immigration enforcement extended beyond physical operations to databases, technology and information-sharing systems used to monitor and detain people.
Lawrence Benito, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the proposal offered an opportunity to reconsider the powers granted to DHS over the past two decades.
He urged investment in services benefiting communities rather than continued spending on enforcement operations that separate families.