Delia Ramirez says DHS must be stripped of authority to use surveillance systems including license plate readers
Delia RamirezU.S. representative for Illinois's 3rd district, in prepared remarks at a shadow hearing she co-hosted
Closing a shadow hearing she co-hosted on ICE's use of technology, Rep. Delia Ramirez said companies including Flock Safety are profiting from the surveillance, detention and deportation of immigrant communities, listed license plate readers among the surveillance tools DHS uses, and said DHS must be stripped of any authority to use these systems, alongside abolishing ICE and dismantling DHS.
“We must strip DHS of any authority to use these systems against us. But we must also go further. We must abolish ICE and dismantle DHS. Nothing less will stop the harm these systems are inflicting on our communities.”
Original text
Official statement
Where this statement fits
Should Flock-style license-plate surveillance networks exist?
Networked automated license-plate readers record passing vehicles and let agencies search or share travel records across locations. Candidates and officials disagree over whether to prohibit these networks, keep them with legal limits, or defend their use for investigations. This tracker records attributable positions on that choice, including proposals that would affect only public funding or data access.
Source and context
Original text
About this source
Rep. Delia Ramirez's remarks as prepared for delivery at "The Tech Behind ICE: Oligarchs, Immigration Enforcement, and the Threat to Democracy," a shadow hearing she co-hosted with Rep. Hank Johnson on July 14, 2026, linked from her office's July 15, 2026 press release. The file name carries a 2024 date, but the press release and the hearing are from July 2026. These are prepared remarks; we did not compare them with the delivered remarks.
Official statement
About this source
Press release from Rep. Delia Ramirez's office dated July 15, 2026, saying that "yesterday" she and Rep. Hank Johnson co-anchored a shadow hearing titled "The Tech Behind ICE: Oligarchs, Immigration Enforcement, and the Threat to Democracy" on ICE's use of technology for mass surveillance. It quotes Ramirez and the hearing's witnesses and links to her prepared remarks.
Before the quotation
In her opening statement, Ramirez said, "Private companies, like Palantir, ClearviewAI, and Flock Safety, are all amassing record-breaking profits from the surveillance, detention, and deportation of our friends, families, and neighbors," and listed automated license plate readers among the technologies ICE and DHS are expanding. In closing, she said the hearing had covered facial recognition, data brokers, biometric databases, license plate readers and digital tracking, and called DHS's surveillance apparatus "a threat to our democracy, our civil liberties, and our constitutional rights."
After the quotation
These are the closing lines of her prepared remarks, after which she adjourned the hearing.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
The reference point is whether networked license-plate reader systems such as Flock should exist and be used. Ramirez names Flock Safety among companies profiting from surveillance and says DHS must be stripped of any authority to use these systems, including license plate readers, which rejects their use by DHS, so we labeled it Condemned. Her remedy restricts which agency may use the systems rather than ending them altogether, so the tracker step is Limit retention and use.
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Cite this record
- Publisher
- The Dispute Index
- Title
- Delia Ramirez says DHS must be stripped of authority to use surveillance systems including license plate readers
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- https://disputeindex.com/events/4213-closing-a-shadow-hearing-she-co-hosted-on
Last updated marks the most recent saved version of this published statement.
The Dispute Index. "Delia Ramirez says DHS must be stripped of authority to use surveillance systems including license plate readers". First published: 2026-10-01. Last updated: 2026-10-01. https://disputeindex.com/events/4213-closing-a-shadow-hearing-she-co-hosted-on