Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who earlier this month rankled fellow lawmakers by saying she’s a “proud Guatemalan” before an American, soon after referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a “terrorist organization.”
Ramirez made the latest comments while giving the keynote address at Netroots Nation, a left-wing political convention originally organized by readers and writers of Daily Kos, on Aug. 8, The Daily Caller reported.
“In my own district, in District 3, we’ve stood up rapid response efforts to defend our communities against [President Donald] Trump,” Ramirez said in her address. “It’s why Tom Homan hates me so much. He says, ‘We come to Chicago, but Chicago’s too educated on their rights,’ because he hopes that we don’t know our rights so they can violate them.
“Well, Tom Homan, let me tell you, all over the country: We will continue to stand up for our rights, and we will continue to call out the terrorist organization that is ICE.”
Ramirez, who serves on the Homeland Security Committee, said she is a proud Guatemalan.
Days before the convention, Ramirez appeared at a conference in Mexico where she asserted, “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.” Ramirez was born in Chicago in 1983.
That caught the attention of some Republican lawmakers.
“Denaturalize, deport, and kick her off Homeland Committee. We know where her allegiances lie,” Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., wrote on X after the clip of Ramirez’s comments, made in Spanish while speaking at a Mexico City summit in early August, went viral.
The Department of Homeland Security also responded on X, posting the video and quoting late President Theodore Roosevelt’s call for Americans to hold their allegiance to the United States.
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism,” the department posted. “Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.”
Ramirez has also previously called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign, for ICE to be defunded, and has referred to the Trump administration as a “fascist government.”
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