Rep. Delia Ramirez isn't mincing her words: "I serve with cowards," she told Current Affairs.

The first Latina elected to Congress from the Midwest has spent her freshman term fighting fascism—whether she’s naming ICE a “terrorist organization,” calling out her colleagues for protecting pedophiles, or introducing a bill to block U.S. weapons from reaching genocidal governments.

At this year’s Netroots Nation conference in New Orleans, Ramirez sat down to discuss a whirlwind week that saw her targeted by right-wing media and Republican colleagues over remarks celebrating her Guatemalan heritage. The attacks, which included unconstitutional calls for her deportation, arrive as she presses forward on her new Block the Bombs Act: a bill aimed at halting U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.

During our discussion, Ramirez connected the dots between Gaza and the U.S.–Mexico border, between foreign aid and crumbling neighborhoods at home, and warned that the authoritarian backslide isn’t coming—it’s already here. In a country taken over by fascists, she says, dissent becomes duty. 

(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Emily Topping

Hello, Current Affairs listeners. I'm very excited to say that I am here at Netroots with Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, who has represented Illinois' third Congressional District since 2023, which includes several neighborhoods in Chicago. She also serves on the Committee on Homeland Security and is a member of the "Progressive Squad" in Congress, which includes AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Really excited to have you on here.

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ 

I'm really excited to be on and here in New Orleans, which is so beautiful.

Topping

You just landed today, have you got a chance to explore a little bit?

REP. RAMIREZ 

Not yet. I'm hoping to do that right after this. No pressure.

Topping

Not at all. So I do want to start out by acknowledging that you have found yourself in the headlines in this week as the most recent target of right wing outrage.

You were speaking at the Panamerican Congress in Mexico City about the pride that you have in your Guatemalan roots, and you said the following in Spanish—which, you know, you might have to help me out here, because I think some people have translated it a little off. 

But you said: "Let me finish by saying a few words in Spanish, because I'm a proud Guatemalan, before I am an American."  There was some debate over how those words translate directly (whether it was "before" or "first"), and we can get into that. But it was the reaction from some of your colleagues that I found most shocking—or maybe not shocking at all.

Your colleague Republican Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee, said: "Denaturalize, Deport and kick her off the Homeland Committee, we know where her allegiance lies." Fox News also ran a headline that said: "Dem lawmaker is more proud to be Guatemalan than American."

So first of all, I'd love to give you a chance to clarify what you meant by your comments. And also, what do you make from these ridiculous calls of deportation from people that you work with in Congress?

REP. RAMIREZ 

Well, first, let me tell you, I'm not surprised by Andy Ogles' comments. This is a man that wants to talk about oath of office but violates it every single day. This is someone that just started serving in Homeland Security Committee and barely shows up to committee. And when he does, he really doesn't say anything half the time, tries to creepily smile at me.

So, you know, I think it's really telling of who they are. These are the very same people that every single day are breaking the Constitution. Andy Ogles wants Donald Trump to run for a third term. Andy Ogles has faked his entire resume, and is probably the new George Santos 2.0 —and so I'm not surprised by the attacks on Diversity and Equity and Inclusion. It's exactly what Donald Trump ran on and what his puppets are continuing to carry on.

It is really unfortunate that that is where they're spending their time. I was at the Panamerican Congress with members of parliament and Congress from 12 different countries, celebrating sovereignty of each of our countries, while also recognizing the duality of how we connect with one another.

And you don't say American-Italian, you say Italian-American. So, my translation in Spanish, could it have been different? And do I sometimes struggle even with some of the words in Spanish, and the order of words? Absolutely, but what I was getting to was that I was proud of my Guatemalan-American roots. And they, of course, took that and ran with it, because they don't want you to think about the Epstein files and how their number one job is to protect the pedophile and not protect the American people.

So I'm not surprised, but I think this is exactly the moment we're living in. When you celebrate diversity, when you recognize a duality of what makes this country beautiful and what makes this country successful, even members of Congress—ignorant people, who happen to serve in Congress—will try to weaponize words so that you don't remember that they want to defund Medicaid and that they want to protect a pedophile. They'd rather talk about a person of color that comes to Homeland Security every single hearing, and someone who is taking a stand for the American people.

Topping

You mentioned Andy Ogles in particular and his role on the Homeland Security Committee. When things like this happen this week and it's dominating Fox News headlines, are your colleagues bringing this up to you in person? Or is it kind of solely a Twitter meltdown?

REP. RAMIREZ 

I serve with cowards. None of the three who have called me out and talked about denaturalizing—first of all, if Andy Ogles knew his job and read the Constitution, he would know that a United States citizen can't be denaturalized. I was born in this country, just like he was, and therefore calling for me to be denaturalized and deported is not constitutional. It's illegal.

But what would you expect from someone who has faked everything about himself, and was really excited that Donald Trump got reelected because he was worried about a conviction for many things that he has done back home in Tennessee?

But no, what he does when he sees me is he smiles at me. He tries to say hello. So I'm interested to see how he will respond to me, since he can't pick up the phone and call me. He'd rather go to Twitter so that he can get some likes and try to go viral for attacking a colleague, instead of actually asking himself: What the hell is he doing to protect the people he represents in Tennessee?

The same thing goes with Byron Donalds and others. I mean, Byron said, "I don't know her well." If you don't know me, why are you talking about me? Why don't you pick up the phone and ask me what I think? Because I show up to Congress. I show up every single week defending Medicaid, Social Security, education, collective bargaining and constitution—something that perhaps he should think about instead of attacking a colleague on Twitter like that.

Topping

You refer to Andy as maybe George Santos 2.0—unfortunately, he doesn't have the little bit of charm that Santos seemed to have.

REP. RAMIREZ 

Ha, he wishes he did, which is why he tries to be a bully online. But no one really cares who he is, because he spends more time trying to attack members of Congress instead of actually defending his constituents. He seems to be more worried about what a state representative, like my friend Justin Jones, is doing than actually representing his constituents. This is what cowardly people do.

Topping

I appreciated in your official statement that you released, you said: "Let's call it what it is today. Today's attacks are a weak attempt to silence my dissent and invalidate my patriotic criticism of the nativist, white supremacist authoritarians in government."

I'd love to hear what you mean when you call more criticism of the government "patriotic," and why that represents patriotism to you.

REP. RAMIREZ 

To me, one of the pillars of being an American is the right to freedom of speech: protecting our Constitution, the amendments that have created the pillar of what we've celebrated as one of the greatest democracies in the western hemisphere.

So the idea that I am being now vilified for providing dissent, in a time where the democracy that we celebrate—that we have fought for, that so many veterans have almost given their life for—to me, is very hypocritical. It's very telling of the small-minded attitudes of people who want to suppress dissent, who don't want us to ask for transparency, who don't want to be questioned when they're taking away people's rights and safety nets.

And let's be clear: I am one of the loudest voices against fascism and authoritarianism in this country. I was the very first member of Congress to call for the resignation of Secretary Noem. I questioned her and questioned the things that she is doing, including giving contracts to Donald Trump's highest campaign donors. It's no surprise that they're attacking me. They're attacking me because I'm speaking truth in a time where dissent has been attacked and vilified, and they're attempting to weaponize the government against the people who are standing up for our communities.

Topping

It's a scary time when it feels like these threats of denaturalization—I mean, it would sound ridiculous a few years ago that they're threatening to deport you.

But we're living in this climate where people are being deported and people are being stripped of their natural rights, whether they're U.S. citizens or not, and it's not such an empty threat. 

REP. RAMIREZ 

It's not. And let me be very clear with you, the democratic backsliding has already happened. We are not "getting close" to fascism. We have an authoritarian government who is using the government and weaponizing it against its own people.

And this idea of deporting a United States citizen—a sitting member of Congress—would have been unimaginable maybe four years ago, maybe in Trump 1.0. But at this moment, he has consolidated power. Every Republican continues to capitulate to whatever he demands. The very same colleagues of mine who said, "I cannot vote for this bill because it's going to expand the deficit of this country," or "I can't vote for this bill because I can't defund Medicaid," when the moment comes to vote, they end up voting on the thing they said they wouldn't.

So no, people should be worried when they hear these things. People should be worried when I serve with colleagues of mine who are introducing legislation to denaturalize United States-born citizens for daring to dissent. Or daring question this fascist President. I have colleagues in Homeland Security introducing legislation to take people's citizenship away from them for protesting, protesting the robbing of people's rights.

Topping

How do you even begin to have civilized conversations with people that believe in something so antithetical to American values—that using your free speech should rob you of your constitutional rights?

I mean, does it make you feel insane to have to explain this to them?

REP. RAMIREZ 

It's mind-boggling, because these are the very same people that—under a Democratic president—talked about how they're the ones fighting for freedom of speech. They want to be able to be able to worship who they want to worship. They want to be able to do what they want with their body. But it's just so interesting how they use those words conveniently, when it benefits them. When it comes to protecting a felon, they find every way and reason to do so and literally say the opposite thing.

I mean, I served in Homeland Security Under Secretary Mayorkas, and to watch them now give $150 billion with no guardrails to Kristi Noem and not question it! This is the same party that said that they're fighting corruption. When you look at who is investing, who is actually making money and profiting from stocks and private detention. The very same people who are voting to give this money—they're stealing from the American people, smiling at you while they do it, and calling us the bad people.

Topping

I mean, you are in Louisiana right now. Obviously, we're sitting here in New Orleans and it's a beautiful city, but we are surrounded in this epicenter of everything that's happening. Alligator Alcatraz is just a couple of hours away. You have ICE setting up in various prisons in Louisiana. Recently, in the Big Beautiful Bill they passed a provision that provides $30,000 sign on bonuses to ICE agents—

REP. RAMIREZ 

It's now $50,000. It's $50,000 and Kristi Noem just said that they are removing age requirements. So that means if you are about to graduate from high school, and you want a $50,000 sign-on bonus as a high school student, they will immediately hire you to go abduct families, children, harm them, beat them.

That is what they're doing. So they're saying, "We have no money. We are broke. We can't cover your health care. We can't cancel student loans, but if you become an ICE agent, we will cancel your student loan. We'll give you student loan forgiveness. We'll give you a $50,000 sign-on bonus. And while we take benefits and pensions from veterans who are working at the VA, we will beef up your pension benefits, because we need you to be part of our terrorist organization called ICE." 

Topping

It absolutely is a terrorist organization; I'm glad that you said that and you've said it before. Is there any kind of recognition from Republicans of just how much goddamn money this is? I mean, $50,000 sign-on bonuses is absolutely ridiculous. It's multi, multi-billion dollars in total.

REP. RAMIREZ 

It's $150 billion from taxpayers that are not going to infrastructure. T hey're not going to education, they are not going to healthcare, they're not going to help people purchase their first home. 25 percent of people between the ages of 29 and 42 believe they will never be able to purchase a home, right? It's too damn expensive, and the government is saying: "We don't have any money to be able to help you be able to stabilize and buy your first home, but we have $150 billion so that members of Congress who want to buy stocks in private detention can become richer."

So that Stephen Miller can become richer, because he is actually a consultant and has made money off of it. And it doesn't really matter if you want to go to college or not, because if you willing to part of this terrorist organization, they'll give them $50,000 to sign on. No training necessary.

Because why would fascists want training? They don't think of immigrants as humans. The same Republicans who love to go to church on Sunday and preach the Gospel of  "love God with all your heart" and "love your neighbor as you love yourself." Perhaps somewhere in Luke 1, they might read that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not in the town that he was from. But none of that matters. Because somehow on Sunday afternoon, after they leave church, they seem to be okay with literally using your taxpayer dollars to destroy, abduct, and put people in concentration camps—and to fund the people who will do it for them. 

Topping

Is ICE really needing to provide these kind of incentives for hiring? Is that because there's a lack of people signing up, or because they want to expand it so significantly? 

REP. RAMIREZ 

It's for both reasons. One of them is—look, they were understaffed before, and not because of the money. It was the process of training and hiring. You know, you have to go through procurement process for contracts. There is no procurement process anymore.

If you are a Trumpster, you get the private detention contract. You don't have to actually have any basic human rights respected in the prison that you are going to be opening up, the "private detention center." You don't need to have beds, you don't have to have food. You don't have to have, like, food that's not spoiled. I mean, this is what's happening right on the detention side. And in order for the detention centers to maximize profit, they need as many of these masked agents—that we don't know where they come from, or who trained them.

You don't have to train them, either, to be arresting as many people as possible. So that they get all those bets. So freshly, you're 17, about to turn 18, and you're about to get $50,000 to become part of the institution that is going to rob families, that is going to put children in cages, and you should be proud of that, because you're about to make a lot of money—off of maybe your classmate.

Topping

It's insane. I do want to ask you—you've recently introduced a bill called the Block the Bombs Act. I caught a little bit of you speaking at Netroots this afternoon, and you said that there's a direct link between the starvation and destruction that we are seeing in Gaza and issues that we face in the United States—that these kind of issues across borders are interconnected.

I'd love to hear you expand a little bit more on that, and also speak about the act you're introducing in Congress.

REP. RAMIREZ 

Look, it's all interconnected. The reason that children are starving and dying in Gaza is the very same reason that so many people are struggling here in United States—why in the richest country in the world, there are children that go to bed hungry.

And in the latest bill that just passed, this "Big Ugly Bill," we made the biggest cuts to nutrition that this country has ever seen. The very same government here in United States that is okay with starving children here, is actually actively helping starve children in Gaza.

I think we need to be very clear: Bibi Netanyahu, Donald Trump, (Nayib) Bukele, who is an authoritarian profiting off of the deportation of his very own people—they are all the same. They want our land. They want our resources. They want our rights so they can profit off of it, and they can carry on their capitalistic agenda that only benefits the few. And I think it's really important for people to understand that it is all interconnected, that the very same forces—those super PACs that fund some of my colleagues in Congress—are the very same Super PACs that are meddling into elections and meddling into foreign policy. It is all interconnected.

There's a reason why so many of my colleagues have taken so long to call for a ceasefire, despite of the fact that the majority of their constituents have been calling for it for the last year and a half. It's this fear of losing elections; it's this fear of retaliation; and it's this fear that they will not be well with the fascist people in power.

Topping

Yeah, I mean you're joining, honestly, a very small group of lawmakers that are calling for halting aid.

REP. RAMIREZ 

Well, let me tell you more about the bill, because I got into it, right? And I digress, because I have a lot of feelings about it. But look, Block the Bombs Bill is a bill around congressional oversight.

We as Democrats have continued to say that we have to remind Donald Trump and the executive branch that we are a co-equal branch of government. That means that they can't push us to the side and get away with, you know, going around us, around the use of our funds. But also oversight and accountability: that we should be able to go into a detention center without having to send you an email 24 hours or a week before—in the same way that we should have authority in deciding if we're going to be sending bombs to someone that's committing a genocide.

So, what the bill does is this. It withholds these weapons and does not allow the President to release these weapons without congressional oversight, and without a joint resolution that is passed by both chambers that allows that to happen. It is the most comprehensive bill that blocks bombs from getting to someone who has demonstrated repeatedly that he cannot honor international law, who has violated both international law and humanitarian law. 

Topping

In a Congress where, like you mentioned, there are even many Democrats who oppose placing conditions on aid to Israel—how are you building support for legislation like this?

REP. RAMIREZ 

Well, I think, let me push into the word "conditional." Why is it that there's only one country in the world that we will stand with unconditionally?

It doesn't matter what they do; it doesn't matter who they kill; it doesn't matter how many people they starve; it doesn't matter if they violate international law. Why is it that we are willing to so proudly say that? Why is it that we say that "(Israel) is a proud democracy" when their very own people are calling for Bibi Netanyahu to be removed? And yet we continue to support them. There is so much dissonance, even in that statement. And I think the question that a lot of my constituents, and their constituents, are asking is: "Why is it that you'd rather spend money in bombing children than funding education in my own home, in my own neighborhood? Why is it that you take my money to starve children, instead of taking my money to put into infrastructure in my local neighborhood?"

People are asking those questions, and I think that you're beginning to see the tides change. But the reality is that we should be asking ourselves, like: "What does unconditional support mean?" I will not unconditionally support Donald Trump. Why unconditionally support Bibi Netanyahu? And why, if we are all about democracy, why is okay to criticize or dissent in this country, when a president—be it a Republican or a Democrat—is violating the Constitution but when a president in Israel is violating the Constitution, we can't question that?

Topping

Well, yeah, that is the million-dollar—billion-dollar—question, isn't it? And unfortunately, there are people that unconditionally support Donald Trump. That's the issue, right? This cult mentality of not questioning someone that you've pledged allegiance to.

And like you said, I do think the tide is finally turning a little bit in regards to Israel, where people are starting to ask, "I am in so much student loan debt; I can't afford to feed my children, et cetera; housing is out of control." Why is this money going to a foreign power?

REP. RAMIREZ 

A foreign power that is violating international law every single day; a foreign power that is committing a genocide; a foreign power that is actually making our domestic national security weaker, who is threatening our national security? That is where the money is going.

And I think that people need to continue to ask those questions, and we as members of Congress have to be able to respond: why? Why? Why are we okay with this? How do we bomb ourselves into peace? You can't say that you want to see peace in the region and continue to send those bombs. You can't say that you feel horrible about the images of starving children and continue to stand with Bibi Netanyahu.

Furthermore, I want to come back to the oath that we take as members of Congress and elected officials. We took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, not its president. And I think people need to remember that, not as the Democratic Party, not as the Republican Party, but the Constitution of the United States of America. So for those that want to question my my patriotism here, I would push back and ask them: What oath did you take? Do you remember what you said, and who are you representing?

And for those that are asking if my allegiance is to another country, I would also tell them: I don't take money from Super PACs that represent other countries. And I'm talking about AIPAC.

Topping

Absolutely. I think a lot of these people could benefit from a long look in the mirror. Finally, I'll end by saying I think a lot of our listeners, probably most of them, are feeling pretty overwhelmed right now—not by the direction that our country is not slipping into, but has already slipped into.

If you could leave them with maybe one action that they can take even this week to make a difference, what would you say that would be?

REP. RAMIREZ 

I would say to them: don't normalize, and don't feel paralyzed by this moment. Every single morning, you're going to wake up to something that sounds even worse from yesterday. And you may find yourself attempting, just so that you can survive the day, to normalize it. Normalizing fascism is how fascism continues to spread.

And so I would say the people that are listening right now, ask yourself, what is the support system that I am part of? How do I build mutual support for those who are most impacted and attacked in this moment? Back home, in my own district, we have mutual aid organizations that, in absence of the government providing for the people, they are building those systems. Rhey're raising money for that family, for the father or the mother have just been abducted by ICE, but the rent still needs to be paid so that the family has a roof over their head. They're figuring out resources around how to talk to people about what's happening, what is fascism, and how we fight back.

There are many small and big ways to get involved, but don't be paralyzed by the moment. I keep saying this: in this precise moment, we need to legislate, litigate and agitate. Take a role in all of that, and let's continue to push back.

Topping

Absolutely. Thank you so much Representative Ramirez for joining us. It has been really wonderful to speak with you.