DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin told a Breitbart News audience in Washington on Tuesday that Democrats who seek to eliminate his department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are hostile to law enforcement. He said homeland protection should not be a matter of dispute and that converting a republic into a socialist or communist system requires manufacturing disorder when none is present.

The remarks followed a briefing last month by Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who proposed ending DHS, ICE, and every immigration detention site. Ramirez, who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the department has shown no regard for rights, due process, legal standards, or dignity and should be taken apart because officials profit from suffering. Jayapal called for closing privately run centers that hold 65,000 people each night, citing taxpayer cost, cruelty, spoiled food, insufficient water, and inadequate medical care, and said those in federal custody should be released.