Homeland Security
Real security means
protecting people.
Project 2025 turned the Department of Homeland Security into a deportation apparatus - gutting cybersecurity defense, defunding FEMA, detaining 66,000 people in conditions documented as torture, and deporting U.S. residents in defiance of federal court orders. Security and constitutional rights are not competing values. A country that is genuinely safe is one that is genuinely free.
The Crisis in Numbers
The damage from abandoning the rule of law.
DHS was created to protect the American homeland. Project 2025 turned it against the American people.
People in ICE detention by December 2025 - a 75% increase and the highest detention level ever recorded in American history
of CISA's cybersecurity workforce eliminated by DOGE - gutting the agency that defends power grids, water systems, and election infrastructure from foreign attack
Deaths in ICE custody in 2025 - the deadliest year since 2004, documented by Amnesty International as including conditions amounting to torture
FEMA employees lost to layoffs and departures in 2025, while the administration denied disaster aid requests from twelve states and proposed eliminating FEMA entirely
Why This Happened
DHS was created to protect us. It was turned against us.
The Department of Homeland Security was created after September 11 with a clear mandate: protect the homeland from terrorism, respond to natural disasters, secure the border, and safeguard critical infrastructure - while upholding the constitutional rights that define the country being defended. Project 2025 shattered that mandate. Under Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS abandoned its counterterrorism and emergency management missions in direct proportion to how thoroughly it embraced mass deportation as its only function.
On day one, the administration rescinded the sensitive locations policy that had protected churches, schools, and hospitals from immigration enforcement across multiple administrations of both parties. It invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 - a wartime statute enacted during the quasi-war with France - to deport 238 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador's maximum-security CECOT prison without hearings, in defiance of a federal court's temporary restraining order issued the same evening. Of those deported, many had no criminal records. All were denied the due process the Constitution guarantees to every person on U.S. soil. Chief Judge James Boasberg found the deportations violated constitutional requirements. The administration pressed forward regardless. It was not until international pressure and court orders forced the issue that the deported individuals were returned - months later, after documented abuse.
While ICE expanded its detention population to a record 66,000 people - housing thousands in state-operated tent facilities that were specifically designed to evade federal oversight - CISA lost nearly 40 percent of its workforce. CISA is the agency that defends electrical grids, water systems, hospitals, and election infrastructure from foreign cyberattack. Gutting it while Russia, China, and Iran escalated their probing of critical infrastructure was not a budget decision. It was a national security failure driven by ideological hostility to CISA's election security mission.
FEMA lost approximately 2,000 employees and had its pre-disaster mitigation programs terminated, while the administration denied or delayed disaster aid requests from at least twelve states. In February 2026, FEMA released disaster aid while explicitly excluding blue states from the distribution - making explicit what had been implicit: whether your community received federal disaster assistance was, in part, a function of how your state voted. That is not homeland security. That is political punishment.
What Project 2025 Did to Homeland Security
- ● Invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport 238 Venezuelans to CECOT prison without hearings - in defiance of a federal court order - and reinstated family separation as a border deterrence policy
- ● Expanded ICE detention to 66,000 people in facilities documented by Amnesty International as having conditions amounting to torture: overflowing sewage, lights on 24 hours, no intake registration
- ● Cut CISA's workforce by 40 percent and ended all threat-hunting contracts - leaving critical infrastructure defenders understaffed while adversaries escalated cyber operations
- ● Terminated the BRIC pre-disaster mitigation program and proposed eliminating FEMA entirely - while denying disaster aid to twelve states and politicizing aid distribution
- ● Arrested 261 DACA recipients and deported 86 of them - people who had passed background checks, lived in the U.S. since childhood, and were lawfully present under federal policy
The Plan
What Project 2029 proposes.
Based on Chapter 5 (Department of Homeland Security) of Project 2029. Security and constitutional rights are not in conflict. This plan restores both.
Restore the Asylum System and End Constitutional Violations
The right to apply for asylum is federal law. Enforce it.
Immediately reinstate the sensitive locations policy protecting churches, schools, hospitals, and courthouses from immigration enforcement - and codify that protection in statute so no future executive can rescind it by order. Restore the CBP One appointment system and reopen the credible fear interview process in full compliance with 8 U.S.C. § 1158 and the 1967 Refugee Protocol. Renounce the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for immigration enforcement and pursue repeal of the Act for any non-wartime application. Immediately end family separation as a deterrence policy - a practice whose documented psychological harm to children was established during the first Trump administration and deliberately reinflicted on a new cohort of families in 2025. Restore prosecutorial discretion, directing DHS to prioritize enforcement based on public safety and national security, not indiscriminate interior enforcement.
Close Alligator Alcatraz and End Subcontracted Inhumanity
Detention conditions that Amnesty International called torture cannot continue
Close the Everglades Detention Facility (Alligator Alcatraz), the Speedway Slammer, Cornhusker Clink, and all state-operated immigration detention facilities that operate outside federal National Detention Standards. Amnesty International's December 2025 report documented overflowing sewage in sleeping areas, 30 people per cage, lights on 24 hours a day, no intake registration, and a punitive device called 'the box' in which detainees were shackled in open sun without food or water. These conditions violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the Convention Against Torture, which the United States ratified in 1994. Establish an independent ICE Oversight Board with investigatory and disciplinary authority. Mandate body cameras for all ICE and CBP enforcement operations. Implement community-based alternatives to detention for all individuals without serious criminal histories.
Codify DACA and Create a Path to Permanence
People who have lived here since childhood are Americans in every meaningful sense
Codify DACA protections in statute - ending the cycle of court challenges and executive reversals that has left 600,000 people in legal uncertainty since 2017. Create a pathway to permanent residency and ultimately citizenship for long-term undocumented residents who have built lives in American communities. Between January and November 2025, ICE arrested 261 DACA recipients and deported 86 - people who had passed rigorous background checks every two years, lived in the U.S. since childhood, and were lawfully present under federal policy. DHS also urged DACA recipients to self-deport while refusing to process new applications. Enacting statutory protection for Dreamers is not a radical act. It is the recognition that people who have lived in the United States since childhood, who have passed every background check required of them, are Americans.
Rebuild CISA and Restore Cybersecurity Defense
Gutting the agency that defends our power grid while adversaries escalate attacks is not a budget decision - it is a national security failure
Restore CISA to full staffing - reversing the near-40 percent workforce cut that eliminated approximately 1,300 positions, including top recruits from competitive fellowship programs who took generational expertise with them. Restore the full $3.1 billion CISA budget and reverse the proposed $500 million cut. Immediately reinstate all threat-hunting contracts with the private sector - proactively searching for adversary intrusions before they cause damage is among the most cost-effective cybersecurity investments the federal government makes. Restore CISA's election security coordination function, which provided threat briefings and technical assistance to state election officials. Enact the Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Act requiring mandatory cyber incident reporting from operators of critical infrastructure within 72 hours - closing the visibility gap that allows attacks to spread undetected.
Restore FEMA and End Politicized Disaster Aid
Whether your home burns down should not depend on how your state voted
Restore FEMA's full workforce and reverse the administration's proposed 50 percent staffing reduction. Reinstate the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which funded pre-disaster mitigation that prevents fires, floods, and other climate disasters from becoming catastrophes. Enact the FEMA Independence Act - prohibiting the denial of major disaster declarations for political reasons and establishing a 30-day statutory deadline for the administration to respond to state disaster aid requests with an up-or-down determination subject to judicial review. In February 2026, FEMA explicitly excluded blue states from disaster aid distribution - making the politicization of life-or-death federal assistance undeniable. This will never happen again under a Democratic administration, and the statute will make it impossible for any administration to do so.
Take Action
Security and rights belong together.
An America that is genuinely safe is one that is genuinely free. These two things are not in tension - the last four years proved it.
Vote for Rule of Law
Candidates who use federal agencies to punish political opponents, deport people in defiance of court orders, and deny disaster aid to states that voted the wrong way should face accountability at the ballot box.
Register to Vote →Demand Accountability
Ask your congressional representatives to support an independent ICE Oversight Board, oppose any elimination of FEMA, and require full CISA funding to protect our critical infrastructure from foreign attack.
Find Your Rep →Read Chapter 5
The full DHS reform blueprint - immigration, asylum, CISA, FEMA, Coast Guard, and civil liberties. Every policy, every legal citation, every implementation step.
Read the Plan →Share This
Help others understand what's at stake.