Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t think much of the agencies that keep America safe. New Yorker editor David Remnickrecently asked about her call to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Couldn’t ICE be reformed? No, replied the freshman Democrat. “The core structure of ICE” and “the entire Department of Homeland Security” are “large threats to American civil liberties.”

Mr. Remnick asked: “Would you get rid of Homeland Security, too?” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez replied, “I think so, I think so.” She called the department’s formation one of the George W. Bush administration’s “egregious mistakes,” described her call for its abolition as “a very qualified and supported position,” and added: “We never should have created DHS.”

The idea of abolishing the Department of Homeland Security is moronic, stupid, naive and dumb. Should the U.S. really shut down the agency in charge of air-transportation security, so hijackers armed with box cutters or bombs can board planes? Do Americans want our borders to be left unprotected against illegal aliens, traffickers, drugs and terrorists? Would America be safer or more free without capabilities like disaster emergency services, terrorism-prevention fusion centers, biological-warfare defense, the Coast Guard, programs to stop domestic deployment of weapons of mass destruction, and protective services for government facilities? All these are Homeland Security functions.

If Ms. Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t believe the department is needed to keep America safe, I told Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum last week, the congresswoman should talk to the Democratic chairmen of the House Homeland Security and Intelligence committees. She should talk to the police department of the city she represents. The NYPD will tell her the Department of Homeland Security has helped foil terrorist plots against the Big Apple.

If AOC remained intent on abolishing the department, I suggested she visit with constituents who lost a loved one on 9/11. Ask if they believe Homeland Security should be abolished so that other American families might suffer the pain they have. The department’s creation was a great bipartisan accomplishment, I told Ms. MacCallum—a new way to meet the 21st century’s challenges. Those challenges haven’t gone away, whatever Ms. Ocasio-Cortez thinks.