“Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security”

The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Onder, to lead us in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We'll begin with opening statements and then get right to the Secretary's testimony. The chair now recognizes himself for an opening statement. Three years ago, Secretary Mayorkas sat at that table and told this committee the border is secure. Eight to 10 million people entered our country in a four-year time illegally, record levels of fentanyl smuggled in, stories of women and children being harmed and abused, and we all remember what we saw. Whether it was the bridge in Del Rio, all the thousands of people waiting to be processed there, when we took trips to McAllen, I mean, we all remember what we saw. Agents had become processors and chauffeurs for the Biden administration's open border policy. And Secretary Mayorkas told this committee in that same chair that Secretary Noem sits in now that the border is secure. Kind of reminds me of that now somewhat famous moment on television where the CNN reporter is standing in front of the burning building and saying it's a mostly peaceful protest. I mean, it was just ridiculous what the Secretary said. And Secretary Mayorkas didn't stop there. Remember when he went after Border Patrol agents, said they were horse-whipping migrants trying to come in? Remember that just completely made-up story? Remember when we asked Secretary Mayorkas how many illegals, again, sat right in this committee hearing and we asked him how many illegals on the terrorist watchlist have been released into the U.S.? How many have been released into the country? Do you remember his response? I don't know. And we're like, man, you're the Secretary of Homeland Security, that's probably something you should know, particularly when you come in front of the Judiciary Committee and we ask you that question. Remember when days before a hearing, subsequent hearing because we got tired of the I don't know response from Secretary Mayorkas, we sent him a letter with questions we were going to ask him so he couldn't say I don't know. Basically like the professor giving the students the here's the exam, here's the questions on the exam, be prepared to deal with these at the appropriate time. When he got to committee, we asked him those questions and again he said, I don't know, I'll have to get back with you. And of course, he never does, never did get back to us. Remember when Secretary Mayorkas wrote the memo, the Mayorkas memo, aliens removable under the Immigration Nationality Act? He said the Immigration Nationality Act should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action. Really? The law shouldn't be the basis for an enforcement action? It should be something else? It should be your memo? But that was exactly the policy, a whole new standard the last administration set. They let eight to 10 million people in, a whole new standard of how you were going to deal with people who were in violation of federal law. And remember when Secretary Mayorkas went even further? He did the protected areas memorandum. And this is the situation when you're trying to follow federal law, trying to enforce federal law, he said you can't apprehend an illegal migrant, maybe one who's been charged with another crime and been released in a sanctuary jurisdiction, something I know some of these angel families know something about, been released in a sanctuary jurisdiction, you could only apprehend them at certain locations. So in other words, think about it, it says in or near certain protected areas you should not apprehend an illegal migrant, a school, preschool, primary school, secondary school, place of worship, place where children gather such as a playground, recreation center, all these restrictions on federal law enforcement being able to enforce federal law. So think about it, some sanctuary jurisdiction, illegal migrant's been charged with another crime, maybe a crime abusing children, is released because the detainer is not honored, he's not turned over to ICE, is released to the streets, you're not allowed to go get a guy who's been charged with harming kids if he's near a school, if he's near kids. That was how ridiculous, how ridiculous everything was in the last administration. But here's the good news. Secretary Noem has rescinded the Mayorkas memo, has rescinded the protected areas memo. Under Secretary Noem, fentanyl coming into the country is down, women and children are safer, and most importantly, under Secretary Noem and President Trump's leadership, the border is now secure. Remember that moment, we all remember the great speech the President gave last week at the State of the Union, but the joint address he gave the year before, one of the best lines I remember from that address was he said, you know, people said you need new legislation to secure the border. Turned out all you needed was a new president. Remember that line? It's true. New president with a secretary who is doing her job. In one year's time, 700,000 people have been deported under Secretary Noem's leadership, nearly three million people have left the country, 1,400 known or suspected terrorists have been arrested. Been arrested, not Secretary Mayorkas telling I don't know the status of people we've encountered on the border on the terrorist watchlist. It's an amazing record, Madam Secretary, but there's still one big problem. Oh, one other thing, one other thing that's not going on at the Department of Homeland Security now, no more Disinformation Governance Board, no more bureaucrats on a board telling Americans what they can say, what they can tweet, what they can read, what they can post, no more censorship going on at the Department of Homeland Security. But there is still one big problem. And I know the Secretary wants to deal with this and we're going to deal with this tomorrow with legislation that we plan to mark up in this committee, and that is the sanctuary jurisdiction policies that are happening all over the country. Left-wing political officials in state and local government telling their local law enforcement do not work with federal law enforcement when it comes to enforcing federal law. One-third of the country, almost one-third of the country lives in a sanctuary jurisdiction, 18 cities, 11 states, three counties, District of Columbia, but they're big population areas, 31 and a half percent of the country lives in a jurisdiction where that is the policy. That may be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And we talked about this individual case last week, Abraham Gonzalez, September 20, 2023, is arrested by Border Patrol for illegally entering the country. Of course, the Biden administration released him. Five months later, he's charged with assault, two weeks after that he's charged with motor vehicle theft, he stole a car, he's arrested by Denver police nine days later, placed in the Denver Justice Center, six days after that ICE sends a detainer notice to the Denver Justice Center. And all the detainer notice is is give us a heads-up if you're going to let this guy out. Just give us a heads-up. But instead of doing that, instead of doing the common sense thing in Denver, sanctuary jurisdiction, they give us, they give the federal government the finger and they release him to the streets, release him to the streets. It's right here on the form, Denver Sheriff Department, ICE notification, being released to the streets on 2/28/2025. And here's what's interesting. This guy, they knew how bad he was because while he was in the Denver Justice Center, they have on the form he's been violent to staff, keep him separate from all other inmates. So he's so dangerous staff can't be around him, other inmates can't be around him, but they're going to release him to the streets instead of turning him over to ICE. Again, dumbest policy I have ever heard, but that is what the left now fully embraces. Let me give you a more recent example. Marvin Morales Ortiz. This is just next door, Fairfax County, Virginia. Detainer is sent, but the Fairfield County Justice Center says we will not honor the detainer, they tell them that on September 14, 2025. They release Mr. Ortiz on December 18, 2025. The next day, he kills an American. Next day, he kills an individual, murders someone. That is what happens in sanctuary jurisdiction. That is why tomorrow, tomorrow help is on the way because we're going to mark up legislation that will deal with this and I think it's going to, I believe it will pass our committee, I believe it will pass the House, we'll get it to the Senate, I want this to become law, I think most people with common sense want it to become law, the Shutdown Sanctuary Policies Act, which will give the people, give the one thing in our bill that we're going to have in the bill tomorrow too, be in the legislation, it will give the people behind you where that scenario is played out, your loved one has been harmed by someone who should have been turned over to ICE but was released, it'll give you a private right of action for these angel families, private right of action where you can go after the government who engaged in that stupid behavior. So Secretary, I want to thank you for your work, I want to thank you for being willing to come today and answer our questions, and with that, I will yield to the gentleman from Maryland, the ranking member, for his opening comments.

Well, thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Secretary Noem, we're glad to meet you even though it's been 13 months since you took office and more than five weeks since two American citizens were shot down in Minneapolis. Renee Good was a 37-year-old poet, about 20 years younger than you are now, and like you, both a devout Christian and the mother of three. She was on her way home from school drop-off when she encountered an ICE operation and one of your agents shot her dead, shot her three times. She bled out in the driver's seat of her car after your agents refused to let a doctor or EMTs approach her. You expressed no sympathy for her family and no regret for her killing by an ICE agent. You ran a smear campaign against Renee Good, you called her a domestic terrorist. Alex Pretti was also 37 and like you, a federal worker. He was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, outstanding in his job, providing comfort to many of our vets in their final hours. He was standing on a street corner filming your agents as they roughed up peaceful protesters. Americans have a First Amendment right to record government agents in public places, as eight different federal circuit courts have unanimously found. But your agents pepper-sprayed Alex Pretti for helping a woman that they'd pushed to the ground. Then they threw him to the ground, they beat him up, they stripped him of a lawful firearm he had never touched, and then after confiscating it, they shot him dead with 10 bullets. Before his body was even cold, you launched a smear campaign against him, using the same language, asserting without evidence that Alex Pretti had committed a quote, act of domestic terrorism and intended to kill law enforcement. This disturbing video tells the true facts you tried to cover up with propaganda, and we can play it only because other brave Americans used their phones to capture the actual reality of this horror. [Video plays.] Madam Secretary, you've provided no evidence to back up your defamatory lie against either of these American citizens. There have been 300 homicides in Minneapolis in 2026, your agents committed two of them. Rather than work with state and local authorities to solve these homicides, you barred Minnesota's investigators from the crime scenes, you're denying them access to all the evidence that you have about the deaths of their citizens. It smells like a cover-up and it makes me wonder who the real domestic terrorists are. But you didn't just lie about Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In dozens of cases, federal judges have found that your officials lied to them in court. A Reagan-appointed judge rejected the testimony of your acting ICE director as quote, disingenuous, squalid, and dishonorable. Another judge called the affidavit of a top ICE official quote, the sorriest statement I've ever seen, adding she was shocked when she saw it and that if you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I'd throw you out of my chambers. Here are a few more examples of the many scores we found in the casebooks. Yesterday, you insisted under oath to the Senate that you follow court orders, but that's not true either. Just last month, your lawyers were forced to admit that you had violated immigration court orders more than 50 times in 10 weeks, and that was just in New Jersey, one of 94 judicial districts in America. In Minnesota, Judge Patrick Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, concluded quote, that ICE has likely violated more court orders in January of 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence. And while you make a daily mockery of our courts and our Constitution, you're treating the Bill of Rights as if it were a list of suggestions.

...government who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts.

Madam Secretary, you've provided no evidence to back up your defamatory lie against either of these American citizens. There've been three homicides in Minneapolis in 2026. Your agents committed two of them. Rather than work with state and local authorities to solve these homicides, you barred Minnesota's investigators from the crime scenes. You're denying them access to all the evidence that you have about the deaths of their citizens. It smells like a cover-up, and it makes me wonder who the real domestic terrorists are. But you didn't just lie about Renee Good and Alex Preddy. In dozens of cases, federal judges have found that your officials lied to them in court. A Reagan-appointed judge rejected the testimony of your acting ICE director as, quote, "disingenuous, squalid, and dishonorable." Another judge called the affidavit of a top ICE official, quote, "the sorriest statement I've ever seen," adding she was shocked when she saw it, and that if you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I'd throw you out of my chambers. Here are a few more examples of the many scores we found in the casebooks. Yesterday, you insisted under oath to the Senate that you follow court orders. But that's not true either. Just last month, your lawyers were forced to admit that you had violated immigration court orders more than 50 times in 10 weeks. And that was just in New Jersey, one of 94 judicial districts in America. In Minnesota, Judge Patrick Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, concluded, quote, that ICE has likely violated more court orders in January of 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence. And while you make a daily mockery of our courts and our Constitution, you're treating the billions of dollars our colleagues showered on your department like a personal slush fund. You budgeted an astonishing $220 million for media consultant contracts so you can star in self-promoting photoshoots and lavish ad campaigns, like this one of you riding horseback at Mount Rushmore, which was shot during last year's government shutdown. You're living rent-free in the official waterfront residence reserved for the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. You spent $172 million to buy not one, but two luxury jets for your travel, and now you're using taxpayer funds to lease a third jet, a $70 million luxury 737 MAX with a queen-sized bedroom in the back, a deluxe serving bar, and four flat-screen TVs. A big, beautiful jet paid for by the big, beautiful bill. Yesterday, under questioning in the Senate, you said you plan to refurbish this jet to make it into this kind of airplane, which is what's actually being used for deportations in order to save the taxpayers' money. In other words, you're saying that's actually a deportation plane. But wouldn't it have been cheaper just to buy a deportation plane in the first place? It's like buying a Rolls-Royce to turn into a metro bus. I was almost prepared to buy that story of how the jet was both for executive travel and mass deportation, and then I heard about an airborne episode of entitlement, arrogance, and contempt that I could hardly believe. Apparently, when your special blanket, your blankie, was left on one of the government jets and not transported over the new one, your special government employee, Corey Lewandowski, chivalrously stepped forward to fire the pilot mid-air, a 2003 Coast Guard Academy graduate and distinguished U.S. Coast Guard commander in Air Station Washington, D.C. But then he had to be rehired immediately because there was no one else who could fly the two of you on the rest of the journey back home. Secretary Noem, you're flying high now, maybe even a little bit too close to the sun. But with all these free planes and houses and pilots, you've traveled a long distance from your actual job and the things you should be doing as head of Homeland Security. Your agency is charged with protecting the homeland. It includes FEMA, TSA, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as ICE and CBP. Yet you've hollowed out the national security mission. You redeployed thousands of people responsible for tracking terror financing and fighting cyber threats to go work on your mass immigration roundup. You reassigned to the roundup agents working a key national security probe into Iran's terror financing, paralyzing that investigation. And to run what's left of Homeland Security's ruined terrorism prevention office, you actually installed a 22-year-old intern whose chief listed qualification for the job was that he had participated in a Model UN club his junior year of college. Through FEMA, you're supposed to provide disaster relief to our communities. Yet last summer's floods devastated central Texas and killed 135 people, including 25 girls and two counselors at a Christian summer camp. You withheld crucial support, including search and rescue teams, for 72 hours. Why? Those were three crucial days during which people drowned and died waiting for bureaucratic approval. You promised to use ICE and CBP to expel the worst of the worst, undocumented immigrants guilty of committing violent crimes, like the people responsible for murdering the children of these angel families, these angel moms and dads who've joined us today. Instead, your masked agents have been indiscriminately rounding up any and all immigrants and citizens who your agents think look like they might be immigrants. They've arrested kindergartners, daycare teachers, and parents dropping off kids at school. They dragged grandparents out of their homes in their underwear in sub-zero temperatures and ripped children out of their beds in the middle of the night or used them as bait to arrest their parents. Just last month, your agents picked up Nurul Shah Alam, a severely disabled and nearly blind Rohingya refugee lawfully in America who didn't speak English. You claimed your agents dropped him at a safe, warm location. Again, not the truth. They dropped him off miles from his home in the dark at a closed coffee shop in sub-freezing temperatures, and now, because of this cruelty, this man too is dead. You have a quarter of a million employees and a budget larger than that of 150 countries. You command over 80,000 sworn law enforcement officers, more than the number of police officers in New York, Chicago, LA, Houston, D.C., Las Vegas, and Dallas combined. On top of that, our colleagues have handed ICE an additional $75 billion by slashing funds for Medicaid, children's health insurance, and rural hospitals. Secretary Noem, your job is to protect the homeland, but the most precious possession that we've got in our homeland is our freedom and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that protect it. You seem to have forgotten what our most precious possession is. The billions of dollars showered on your department have paid for violence and chaos in the American heartland and a sweeping assault on the basic rights of the American people. But the heroic citizens of Minneapolis have shown America how to fight back against this reign of terror and win with the truth, with solidarity, with mutual self-help, with creative joy and humor and music, with mass non-violent assembly and protest, and with irrepressible love of children and kindness towards animals and other living things. You've turned our government against our people, and you've turned our people against our government. But the people are winning today, although we know we must continue to wake up every day like the people of Minneapolis and go out and fight for constitutional freedom. We are clearly in the fight of our lives, and we obviously have very serious questions for you today about what you are turning our government into. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Gentleman yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witnesses. Ms. Noem has served as the Secretary of Department of Homeland Security since January 25, 2025. She previously served as the Governor of the great state of South Dakota and was our colleague here in the House of Representatives, and we welcome our witness and thank her for appearing today and for the work that she is doing. We will begin by swearing you in. You know how this works, Madam Secretary. Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?

I do.

Let the record show that the reflect that the witness has answered in the affirmative. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony, and Madam Secretary, you are recognized.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member Raskin, for your opening statements, and I look forward to discussing the work that the Department of Homeland Security does each and every day to defend our homeland. I also want to take a personal privilege and thank my husband for being here too. He's going to have to go catch a flight in a few hours, but I'm glad he could be here today. And then I want to remind you of why we're all here. I've had people ask me over and over again, Kristi, why did you say to President Trump that you would do this job? And I said because this is going to be a difficult job. It's going to be a hard job. We're going to have to secure our border and make sure we're going after dangerous criminal illegals and remove them from our country, and every day we're going to have to make tough decisions to uphold the law, but to make sure that the consequences for breaking the law are put in place as well. The one thing I would say is I wasn't quite prepared for was the heartbreaking stories I would hear. The families that have lost their children, their brothers and their sisters to dangerous people that came into this country that never should have been here to begin with. They never should have been here, and then they perpetuated violent crimes against these people. I heard one story, I'll never forget hearing Rachel Morin's mom tell the story of how she was killed. And to listen to a mom talk about how her daughter was slammed into her head exploded, and then he raped her and left her dead, knowing that Rachel had five kids too that now didn't have a mom anymore. And that that individual should have never been in this country. So the reason that I do this job every single day is for that. Is that somebody has to do the right thing and tell the stories of these families and make sure that we don't sit around here and make political potshots on falsehoods and lies like I just heard from the ranking member. That instead, we do the right thing to defend these families and remember their children. Behind me are families with children. These are the children's names that we've lost. Weston Funder, Megan Booz, Carlos Wolf, Sander Cohen, Ryan Lang, Drew Swan, Sydney Shurgen, Jesse Bera, Heaven Lee Nelson, Dana and Ricky Keem, Austin Babcock, Michael Boden, Logan Harris, Leo To, Haley King, Rain Reese, Wesley Green, Krisha Odette. And we are still very best blessed to have little Miss Delilah with us. Delilah's right behind me, and she and I are good friends, and she was hit by a vehicle that by a truck that was driven by someone who's in this country illegally and had an illegal CDL. That accident should have never happened because he never should have been in this country and he certainly shouldn't have been behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler. But she's still with us and she's doing good and she's telling her story with her dad and her family and continuing to make sure that we do the right thing here on Capitol Hill. Listen, the Department of Homeland Security was established after the attacks on 9/11. It was established to defend our homeland and put all the agencies together that have that mission, and that's what we do each and every day. We make sure that we enforce the law and that we protect our homeland and that the families that live here, the American citizens are our number one priority. For 10 straight months, Border Patrol has released zero illegal aliens into this country. In President Trump's first historic year back in office, over three million illegal aliens have left our country. We've arrested 700,000 of them and detained them and removed them from the country, but over 2.2 million of them left voluntarily. And you know why? Because we told them to. We marketed to them. We ran a media campaign that was the most effective media campaign in the history of this country. $39 billion of taxpayer savings because those people left and got off of our programs, and we didn't have to deport them at a cost of $18,000 a piece. They went on their own, and it saved the taxpayers $39 billion because we told this country and the eight countries they were coming from that we were enforcing our laws and you couldn't stay here illegally anymore. ICE has arrested over 1,500 known or suspected terrorists. 1,500 that Joe Biden let in over that open border during that invasion that we found and we've removed. And we're going to continue to do that work because we don't know how many more there are still here. Over 7,700 gang members. And Mr. Chairman, Joe Biden lost 450,000 children that they allowed the cartels to traffic over the border. They used them, they abused them, they put them with government sponsors and paid government sponsors to abuse them and traffic them. We have found 145,000 of them, but I'm not going to stop until we find them all. And we'll continue to do that. Fentanyl trafficking over the southern border is down 56 percent because of President Trump. We continue to stop drugs. 1.7 lethal doses of drugs have been stopped from coming into our country in the last year. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. It's amazing to me how once President Trump came into office, they quit talking about the drug epidemic. The media doesn't cover it anymore, do they? That's because there is 1.7 billion people that are still alive today in this world because we've stopped them. And that invasion over the southern border made those cartels rich. You want to know why they're so sophisticated now? Why they have high-tech weapons? Why they have drones? Why they're able to be so successful? It's because they were allowed to do whatever they wanted to for four years. And Biden enriched them, and the Democrat Party enriched them so that they could perpetuate violence against the United States. Mr. Chairman, I could go on and on, but I look forward to the conversation today and I look forward to continuing to fight for America. Thank you, I yield back.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that opening statement. We will now go to gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, for five-minute question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, I couldn't be happier that you're exactly where you are. Many of us had the honor of serving with you when you were in the House and candidly, when I hear the jealousy of the ranking member for the job you're doing and his inaccurate statements, all I hear is, you know, you were better than this body and you're proving it every day, you and President Trump. You know, the ranking member is entitled to his opinion and to that dialogue berating you and everything the administration's doing. He's just not entitled to his facts. And I'd like to spend my time concentrating on a few of those. Madam Secretary, were any laws changed significantly between the time of, let's say, President Obama or President Clinton and their enforcement of the border and Joe Biden's four years?

No, there wasn't, sir.

And were any laws changed between the time that Joe Biden let 10 million plus people into the country, including the worst of the worst from around the world, and the time that you and President Trump began working?

No, there wasn't.

So it's not about laws. It's not about the calls of things being constitutional or unconstitutional. Isn't it true that every president except President Biden spent a lot of time, energy, and public relations letting people know that the border was a place to be respected and that we would deport particularly criminals coming in our country?

That is correct.

So regardless of what the ranking member says, all you've really done with gusto, with tenacity, and with all the funds you've been able to have is you've done exactly what President Clinton did or President Obama or any other president who respected the Constitution and the laws we've already passed.

That is correct.

So I want to touch on a personal note, though. You've been to the White House, you've been to the Vice President's residencies. Both of those exist as working places, but they exist as places to protect people who in fact would be attacked. Is it fair to say that you and your family are at greater risk because of the job you're doing than anyone who's had your job perhaps since 9/11?

Yes, sir, I can't speak specific to the threats, but they are real.

And so when the ranking member spends so much time talking about your being in a protective housing, by the way, one that is under your authority and one that the head of the Coast Guard normally would be in, I'm just going to make a statement, a view, an opinion, and hopefully the ranking member will agree with this opinion. The chances that the commandant of the Coast Guard is going to be attacked for the job he's doing and the chance that you will be attacked causes both of you to be in protective housing. You're simply in the housing that he historically had, and I want to thank the administration for recognizing the threat on you and your family for the work you do. Yes.

Let me clarify a couple things. I'm not in the commandant's house. I'm in a Coast Guard house, but not the commandant's house. The commandant is in his house. And I will also tell you that I rent that facility. I rent where I stay and pay personal dollars to do that.

So I'm hearing the ranking member making statements that aren't true, but they're his opinions. I want to thank you for correcting that. I apologize for not knowing it's the commandant's residence. I have been in that in the past. And he does use it for both official and unofficial, and it's the reason he has it. And the CNO is also housed in an alternative. And by the way, that alternative, just for history, we moved the Vice President under Gerald Ford to that residency, and Congress did it and has made the decision that protecting key people and their families so they can do their job is important. And I want to make that point clear today. Now the ranking member will doubtlessly be the next person and you will have to put up with five minutes and one second of berating again. So I want to give you this last 50 seconds to talk just once more about the families behind you because he implied that he was compassionate for those families, that he understood it. I'm looking at them and Madam Secretary, I don't see them as being here in support of those four years of Joe Biden and the ranking member's administration.

No, and it's interesting because when President Trump was here in his last term, he opened up an office at ICE to help these families, to give them information on support, you know, mental health that they might need or also knowledge on court cases of the individuals who had killed their children. And when Joe Biden came into office, he closed down that VOICE office, completely shuttered it because that office also tracked how many victims there really were in the country that had been affected by illegal alien crime. So when I came in, I didn't have any data set to use because Joe Biden and his administration had completely quit keeping track of the amount of victims here. We're grateful that they're here today. We're grateful that the VOICE office is back open again and that these families now can know where their children's killers are. They can follow that and they can make sure that they hold people accountable to not enforcing the law.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Noem, we have seen a consistent pattern of lies and deceit from the Department of Homeland Security under your leadership. I'm not just talking about the false claims that you and others at DHS have spread in attempting to smear Alex Preddy, Renee Good, and other victims of ICE's deadly tactics, all of which are well known. I'm talking about the dishonesty and deception that has become commonplace throughout your agency. One of the most brazen incidents occurred last week at Columbia University, where five DHS agents conned their way into a university-owned apartment building at 6:00 AM. They were pretending to be police officers searching for a missing child. But this was nothing more than a ruse to gain access to the apartment of a student originally from Azerbaijan, Eli Agayeva, a senior studying neuroscience and politics. A public security officer on the scene asked for a warrant, but none was produced and they proceeded to arrest Eli. It is black letter law that a government agent cannot lie about searching for a missing child to gain entry to a residence. It's literally the example they give in the criminal procedure textbook. But your agents deliberately misrepresented themselves to gain access to Eli's apartment. Fortunately, hours after Eli was taken into custody, following a public outcry and a meeting with Mayor Mamdani, President Trump intervened and secured her release. If Eli had been among the worst of the worst that you claim to target, surely the President would not have pushed for her release. But this is just one example of an out-of-control department under your leadership. My own office was the victim of your agency's deceptive tactics last year, when DHS agents entered my office under false pretenses, claiming that my staff was, quote, "harboring rioters," when video clearly showed this was not the case. A statement issued by DHS claimed the agents were doing a, quote, "security check." And yet the video that has been released shows them handcuffing a staffer, demanding access to non-public areas of my office without a warrant, denying that they even needed a warrant when challenged by a member of my staff, and never once asking about the safety and security of my staff. More lies. Although both of these incidents are traumatic for those involved, at least everyone is alive and well. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Nurul Amin Shah Alam, an elderly, nearly blind refugee from Burma living in Buffalo. Two weeks ago, he was left abandoned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents outside a Tim Hortons coffee shop an hour after they closed. In the cold and in the dark, with no shoes on, miles away from his home. Five days later, he was found dead. Mr. Shah Alam escaped a genocide in his home country just to die here because Border Patrol could not be bothered to take him home or to tell his family where they had released him. When the story came out in the press, DHS claimed that they had dropped Mr. Shah Alam at a, quote, "warm, safe location" near his last known address. Your agents also claimed Mr. Shah Alam showed, quote, "no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance." These were obvious lies. The coffee shop was closed, it wasn't safe and warm. He was nearly blind, he required special assistance, but your agents callously left him to defend for himself with deadly consequences. This is a clear case of your officers failing to fulfill the basic duty of care and as a result, this man is dead. So Secretary Noem, I want to know if there will be any accountability for the incidents I have described today. Will the agents who lied at Columbia face discipline, or the officers who forced their way into my office? What about the officers in Buffalo who abandoned a barefoot blind refugee in the middle of a freezing night miles away from his home? Will any of them face accountability?

Well, sir, you talk about several different specific cases. What I would say is some of your facts are wrong on some of those cases, but also that they are all being reviewed. We do have a review process in the ICE agency within this department that goes through and does an OPR, which is the Office of Professional Responsibility, makes sure that all protocols were followed in every single case.

We know, we know that in the... you're claiming my time. We know that in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Preddy, proper protocols were not followed. Now Erie County is currently mounting an investigation. Will you at the very least commit today that DHS will cooperate with the investigation by local authorities in New York of Mr. Shah Alam's death? Yes or no?

Which case are you talking about, sir?

Shah Alam, the one who was released.

We will certainly look at that, but I want you to know that the investigation...

Will you cooperate with the local authorities? Yes or no?

I don't conduct the investigations that are outside of within the umbrella of ICE and CBP.

I'll take that as a no. The FBI leads those investigations. I'll take that as a no. Unfortunately, that has become a pattern we've come to expect in this administration. Secretary Noem, your agency is running amuck and you're doing nothing to hold them accountable. Everything that we are seeing, the lies, the harassment, the cruelty, that is all happening on your watch and in your name. You should be ashamed. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Gentleman from California, Mr. McClintock, chairman of the subcommittee on immigration is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we have a number of angel families here today whose loved ones were killed because of the open borders policies of the Democrats. Could I ask them to stand for a moment and be recognized so that we can honor their loved ones and get a sense of the human toll that four years of open borders took on our country? Thank you. God bless you all. Thank you. Madam Secretary, the Democrats told us that the only way to secure our borders was we had to grant amnesty and citizenship to the millions of illegals that they had allowed into our country. Was this true?

No.

And how do we know it wasn't true?

Because we enforced the law and sent the message that the United States, now our border was going to be secure and we would ensure that and it happened. People quit coming, they quit coming to that border because we told them it was closed and we made sure that when people did cross the border that there was consequences for breaking federal law.

During the Biden years, approximately how many foreign nationals illegally entered our country, either as gotaways or through the CBP One app or the catch and release policies of Biden?

We don't necessarily know, Congressman. We don't necessarily know because the invasion was facilitated by the federal government during that time and while all of our CBP agents were pulled to process people, to make sandwiches, to take care of the masses and thousands of people crossing the border, huge swaths of our border were left unsecured and the cartels took advantage of that to try to...

So we don't know. We don't know how many millions of illegals. We know at least 10 million because we watched them either cross the border or we released them under the Biden administration. But the Inspector General reported that they also approved entry visas for 13 million foreign nationals without conducting any interviews or background checks as required by law. Do we know anything about those 13 million visa approvals that were given without any kind of vetting?

We don't. We're going back and tracking ones we have documentation on, but most of them are not at the addresses that they left, the contacts that they may have done and all of our programs under the Department of Homeland Security were violated and abused and perverted as well. For example, when we came in, there was 400,000 asylum cases. That was a year before we came in. When we, he abused it so bad during that invasion that when I first got sworn in as Secretary, there was a backlog of 1.5 million asylum cases. All need to be reviewed.

And do we know how many are still even in the country?

No, we don't.

How many criminals were allowed in?

Oh, thousands, thousands of them. We know for a fact that other countries encouraged, emptied out their prisons, their mental institutions, encouraged people to go and those individuals who would pay a cartel member to move them across the country certainly came into our country, broke that first law, which made them a criminal and then after that many times.

And could you tell us again just how many illegal aliens have been deported under your leadership or have been self-deported?

There's been over 700,000 that have been detained and arrested and are being deported. I want to remind everybody at this committee too that every single one of these individuals that's detained has final orders of removal, they can leave today. As soon as they get to that detention center, they have the option to go home.

And by the way, how many of those that you've deported now have records of a criminal arrest or conviction?

Seventy percent of those in our detention centers have criminal records.

So roughly over a half a million.

Yes.

So you've effectively removed more than a half a million criminal illegal aliens from our streets and sent them back to their own countries or detained them.

Yes.

And what's that done to our crime rate?

Oh, our crime rate has been phenomenal. In fact, we have the lowest murder rate in our country that we've had since it's been recorded. Over 125 years, our murder rates are at the lowest that it is. The drug epidemic is getting better and improving. We need it to do more so we don't lose more of our children. But we specifically under ICE as well and HSI target human traffickers and child pedophiles and those that would perpetuate assaults against our children.

The chairman said there were 11 states refusing to enforce federal immigration law. I think it's worth noting there were also 11 states in the old Confederacy and they too asserted the doctrine of nullification that states could ignore or nullify federal laws that they didn't like. That's fatal to a federal republic like ours. Abraham Lincoln understood that, Andrew Jackson understood that, Donald Trump understands that. It's what lit the fuse for the Civil War. How do these sanctuary states thwart enforcement of our federal immigration laws?

They don't cooperate with us. They don't share background information or arrest information or when they're releasing someone from their prisons or jails. They turn them on the streets and then when we are out doing enforcement actions, they don't help us with security. Many of these local officials, driven by political leaders, governors or mayors, don't come when we respond, when we ask for backup for our law enforcement as well.

And what's the purpose of these so-called sanctuary cities and states? Are they protecting all illegal aliens or only those illegal aliens that have been arrested for other crimes?

I would say they're protecting them all. They're allowing them to stay on their programs and to live in their housing and facilitate it and to be on benefits programs that take taxpayer dollars out of their communities away from American citizens and facilitate a way of life for people that didn't follow our legal process. I know that they're very concerned, the Democrat Party is very concerned about illegal aliens in this country. I will tell you as the Secretary of Homeland Security, it's my job to get up every day to be concerned for American citizens. They are my priority.

Thank you for the job you're doing.

Gentleman yields back. Mr. Coleman, I should have said this earlier, if you need any help or a little break, if you want to go in the back room with Delilah, that's fine. I see Delilah decided to take a nap. Let the record show I think she fell asleep during Mr. Nadler's questions, not Mr. McClintock's. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Secretary Noem for being here with us this morning. You know, there's an old adage that states there are no bad dogs, just bad owners. And one of the questions we have is are there bad agencies or just bad owners and bad leadership? And so, you know, I have a concern about much of what's happened in the enforcement region internally in the United States. And I'd like to show a video, the video number one if the staff could play that.

[Video plays.]

Now this was in January. ICE agents forced their way into the home of a United States citizen, Mr. Scott Thou, without a warrant. As you could see from the video, they pulled him into sub-freezing temperatures in his underwear, held him for a number of hours and finally released him. You know, the Fourth Amendment says the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated and provides for a warrant requirement to enter a person's home. Now that was bad leadership in my judgment because on your part, the Attorney General has issued a memorandum asserting, I think incorrectly, I mean obviously incorrectly, that no warrant is required to break into somebody's house, contrary to what the Fourth Amendment provides, and that an administrative warrant, which is basically note to self, go ahead and break into anybody's house you want, is what's sufficient. So my question really is not about the illegal breaking and entering into that US citizen's house, but what is the policy about taking an old man in his underwear out of a house in sub-freezing temperatures? Do you train agents not to do that or are they trained to do that?

All of our law enforcement officers go through extensive training. Our ICE officers go through 58 days of training and 26, 28 of those on the job. But beyond that, they are trained in constitutional law, which you referenced, so they all know that.

My really question was about manhandling an old man in sub-freezing weather. So they're trained in those situations? So they're trained to do that?

They're trained in how to interdict someone, to detain them, and to take them.

But this man had done nothing. Let me show you another video. Show another video.

[Video plays.]

So this disabled woman, she's a US citizen, Ms. Raymond, she wasn't protesting anything. She was on her way to a doctor's appointment. She has a traumatic brain injury and as you can see from the video, your agents surrounded her car, they pointed their weapons at her, they broke her window, and they dragged her from the car. Let me show you another video.

[Video plays.]

Now in this video, masked agents blocked the road with their SUV and used it to hit an American citizen driving in the right lane on her way to work after dropping off her child. As you can see, they drew their weapons, they dragged her into the street to arrest her. She didn't know they were federal law enforcement because they were wearing masks. So the question I have is are agents trained to break the windows of people whose cars they encounter and drag them out forcibly without asking questions? Is that their training?

Congresswoman, our officers are all trained for situations to where they're interacting with the public and where they are detaining someone or arresting them. What I would say is they always go with their presence is when the enforcement action begins, the officer's presence and then verbal commands. If an individual doesn't respond to verbal commands, then they go to soft techniques, which you see utilized throughout the country and our officers follow that protocol and are trained in that protocol. You talked earlier about administrative warrants. Administrative warrants are the tools that you gave us. Congress gave us that tool in immigration law to use to go and detain individuals who are in this country that have had final removal orders.

I will just note that is garbage law. The Constitution trumps...

The Supreme Court backed it up. The Supreme Court affirmed it.

You're incorrect. There's a long line of cases, Mr. Chairman.

It's the only tool we have, ma'am, and the only...

The real lawyers on this committee know that the Fourth Amendment provides for a warrant requirement.

You can describe it how you want, but it is the law. It is federal law. Gentlelady's time has expired. The chair now recognizes...

Mr. Chairman, could I just do a UC request?

Gentleman is recognized for unanimous consent.

This comes from the Guardian, Worst of the Worst, Most US Immigrants Targeted for Deportation in 2025, 73 percent had no criminal charges, documents reveal.

Without objection. Chair now recognizes, Madam Secretary, how many detainers in 2025 did ICE issue to local law enforcement?

It was 201,340.

And I just want to be clear, that means over 200,000 individuals are in the country illegally, you have a notice, final order to remove those individuals, they've been charged with an additional crime, some other crime, harming kids, stealing stuff, armed robbery, maybe even something worse, they're in a jail or detention center, and you send a notice, a detainer notice to that jail or detention center saying if you're going to release this individual, give us a heads up so we can come apprehend him at the jail. Is that all accurate?

That is accurate, yes.

Okay. Now, and in 68 and a half percent of the country will work with you on that. Most, most of the country. Two-thirds of the country. But a third of the country won't because they're run by left-wing crazy elected officials. And they say, no, no, no, we're not going to, we're not going to work with ICE. So how many times in the same time period, how many times last year, 2025, were your detainers not honored?

17,864 detainers were declined.

Declined. And now some of them, they may have declined early, but many of those people are out on the street. Is that fair to say?

That's correct.

So in these jurisdictions, they say, we don't care that federal law says there's a final order of removal for this individual, and we don't care that this person's been charged with an additional crime. We're going to turn them out on the street, release this individual out on the street, and make you send six agents, 12 agents, whatever, to get the bad guy on the street when you could have sent one to the jail and just made it easy. Is that right?

That is correct.

And is, let me just ask this, is that the dumbest thing you've ever heard?

It is the dumbest. Well, I've heard a lot of dumb things in this job.

Well, I've heard a lot of dumb things from the left as well, but that is certainly at, near the top. Right? Now, here's what's interesting. They don't want it just to remain one-third of the country, they want it to apply everywhere. And you know how we know that? One month ago today, Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Leader Schumer sent a letter to Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune. And in that letter, they have 10 demands that they want. It's why they shut down the government, they're saying. One of the reasons they shut down the government is they want that policy, which only applies to 31 percent of the country right now, to apply nationwide. And I just want to read it, because it's point number four in their letter one month ago. Protect sensitive locations, prohibit funds from being used to conduct enforcement near these sensitive locations. So after they release them, they don't want you to be able to arrest a guy who may have been charged with abusing kids, who wasn't, the detainer wasn't honored, who's released to the street. They don't want you to arrest him near medical facilities, schools, childcare facilities. So if he's hanging out near a childcare facility and he's been charged with abusing kids and he's here illegally, or a school, you're not supposed to get him there according to what Leader Jeffries and Leader Schumer said. And I'll ask you the same question, is that the dumbest thing you've ever heard?

Yes, that is one way to encourage criminals. Yes, that is one way to encourage criminals to congregate where children are, is to say that a school would be a safe zone.

And what happens when they don't honor detainers, they release bad guys who were supposed to, according to federal law, be turned over to ICE and you're supposed to remove them, they release them. What happens is exactly what I talked about in our opening statement. You have guys like this Ortiz fellow, right next door in Fairfax County, Virginia, who was here illegally, you all sent a detainer, and they said last September, nope, we're not going to honor it. They released him to the street and he killed someone. When it could have been easy. Someone would still be alive today, and as I said before, there'd be one less angel family in this country if they would simply do the common sense thing. But no, they want to expand it, and they don't want, they want to, they want to put back in this protected area. Here's the other thing that's interesting. They all defend what happened in Minneapolis when all the, when all the protesters and rioters or whatever you want to call them went into the church. So they're allowed to go into the church and somehow that's fine, they can disrupt a church service, but you're not allowed to go near, at or near a church to arrest a bad guy who's been charged with another crime and released to the street. Again, unbelievably stupid. And that is why tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee is going to mark up the Sanctuary Shutdown Act of 2026. And hopefully we can pass that, get it to the Senate, pass it, and get President Trump to sign it, because it is the right thing to do and anyone with common sense understands that. And I apologize I went too long, I'll give you the last 20 seconds.

No, I just, I just appreciate that and I agree with you wholeheartedly that a lot of what comes at us for criticisms is simply not truth. Every day we're, and it's interesting, Chairman, as you were talking I was thinking about the last committee hearing I was at just a couple of months ago in December, that all the Democrats held up pictures of illegal aliens and were defending illegal aliens and talked about them. Now today they're defending citizens because they know they shouldn't be putting illegal aliens in front of citizens. They've changed their method, now they realize that when they're fighting for people who shouldn't be in this country to begin with, that that's a losing statement with the American people. That common sense would tell you somebody who lives here that is a citizen should be prioritized over someone from another country.

Well, but Madam Secretary, they're not only fighting for people here illegally, they're releasing the bad guys to the streets for goodness sake. That is the problem. With that, I now recognize the ranking member for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're fighting for American citizens, Madam Secretary, because, because your ICE agents shot them in the face and killed them, and each person you see up on this dais today represents 800,000 American citizens. And you should know that as a former member of Congress. Now, her brother said that Renee Good was someone who could make you believe things were going to be okay despite all the hardship because she chose optimism. Alex Preddy was a boy scout, a choir member, an outdoorsman from Green Bay who lavished attention on his beloved dog, Jewel. His sister called her brother someone who had a way of lighting up every room that he walked into. But only a few hours after they were gunned down by your agents, you called Renee a domestic terrorist. You said Alex committed an act of domestic terrorism. Alex's parents responded to your calling their son a domestic terrorist. They said, the sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Now I want to give you a chance before the entire country to correct your false and defamatory claim. Based on what you know today, Madam Secretary, were Renee Good and Alex Preddy domestic terrorists?

Congressman, what happened in Minnesota in those two incidents was an absolute tragedy.

Were they domestic terrorists as you said to the country?

And my condolences to their families because I know that their lives will never be the same after that happened.

Is that an apology for what you said?

We in those instances offer as much information as we can from officers and agents on the ground in a chaotic scene that gets relayed as quickly as we can.

I'll repeat my question reclaiming my time. Based on what you know today, Madam Secretary, based on what you know today, were Renee Good and Alex Preddy domestic terrorists?

As you know, there's ongoing investigations that are being led by the FBI.

Oh, but you didn't wait for the investigation, did you? You didn't wait for the evidence, you proclaimed that they were domestic terrorists at the time. Why did you do that?

And you didn't wait to attack our law enforcement.

Why did you do that? Why did you call them domestic terrorists?

Before going into a dangerous scene, it's our ICE officers and our HSI officers that day risked their lives to protect that scene so evidence could be reclaimed, so it could be used in the investigation because those violent rioters that were there.

So you're proud of the fact that you called them domestic terrorists? Is that what you're telling America?

HSI officers put their lives on the line to protect that scene so evidence so that we could have.

Yes, they do. Yes, they do. But you told a lie about them. You said that they were domestic terrorists. Do you regret that?

I offer my condolences to those families and again.

Based on what you know today, were Renee Good and Alex Preddy domestic terrorists?

There's ongoing investigations and so I cannot.

So you still don't know? You think that's an open question?

I would think you would want there to still be investigations going into these situations.

Well, you stated the conclusion two hours after they were killed that they were domestic terrorists. I wanted to give you an opportunity to correct the record, not just for their family, but for everybody in America who believes in the truth and fairness and honesty.

In every situation, as facts come out, we relay them as quickly as we can.

You know, your acting ICE director Todd Lyons came before Congress. He said he had no knowledge whatsoever that Alex Preddy and Renee Good were domestic terrorists, none. This is your guy, he said that. He admitted that that was wrong. Why won't you admit it?

I will tell you the investigation's still ongoing and we'll.

So do you regret speaking before the investigation?

I would say that in those situations, in a chaotic scene on the ground, we relay information to the American people that they're asking for. And as the things change, situations change.

People were asking you whether they were domestic terrorists? And you decided that they were before the investigation?

As we learn more, we can.

You don't want to say anything to their families?

I did. I said I condolences.

For what? How about an apology for what you said about their loved ones?

My heart is with them and we will continue to stand with them as they get a complete investigation into these situations.

All right. Well, um, let me ask you some questions of law if you can't handle the facts. Very simple questions of law, not trick questions. Is it lawful for federal agents to shoot and kill a person for engaging in peaceful protest and nothing else?

That's a yes or no question. Each instance is and peaceful protest, no, it's not.

Okay, good. Is it lawful for federal agents to shoot and kill a person for filming them on a public street, yes or no?

No.

Okay. Is it lawful for federal agents to shoot and kill a person just because that person is lawfully carrying a holstered firearm under the Second Amendment and state law?

No.

And finally, yes or no, is it lawful for federal agents to shoot an innocent person or even a criminal suspect just for driving away from them according to the Supreme Court?

No.

Okay. Well, I'm glad you got the law right, and I hope you would rethink what you said about two good, honest, faithful American citizens. And what that means to their families when you say that as Secretary of Homeland Security. And your ICE guy has already retracted that and you should retract it too. I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentleman yields back, the gentleman from Arizona is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Noem, for being here today. Also, I want to acknowledge the angel families. There are very few jurisdictions that don't have angel families. Very, very few. Thank you for your courage and your willingness to be here today. I am grateful that the ranking member at least knows, Secretary Noem, that under your jurisdiction there's the Coast Guard, there's FEMA, and a whole host of other agencies, TSA being one. He listed some of them. He's chosen not to fund them. How outrageous is that? How outrageous. So Secretary Noem, before I turn to my questions, I want to establish the insanity of what sanctuary jurisdictions are doing and why it matters. And by the way, I'll just say, Mr. Chairman, on the CDL issue, I have a bill 7200 I'd love to bring that in because it would require states to do E-Verify before they grant a CDL, we might save some more lives. Let's start with ICE immigration detainers. From October 22, 2022, through February 2025, state and local jails declined more than 25,000 ICE detainers. In more than 1,400 additional cases, they failed to provide proper notice before releasing an alien from custody. That's not symbolic resistance, that's operational non-cooperation. It undermines federal law, it increases the risk to law enforcement, it increases the risk to the person arrested even, and it results in the release of removable criminal aliens back into American communities. This administration, the Trump administration, the Noem administration, is enforcing the tools Congress provided. We expect cooperation, not obstruction. The consequences are not hypothetical. ICE data from FY 2025 shows that sanctuary jurisdictions released offenders with homicide charges or convictions, and I'm going to highlight just several examples. Rami Jalal Naisan, an Iraqi national, 28 arrests, Chicago ignored three ICE detainers, 15 of his arrests occurred after the first detainer was issued. Waldemar Zybik, a Polish national convicted of attempted murder after stabbing his wife and daughter, was released despite an ICE detainer. Alexander Pascual Pedro, arrested for aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child, released despite a detainer, later convicted of solicitation to meet a child, and then arrested again for domestic violence. Ismael Gomez Urzua, deported four times, three detainers ignored despite arrests for narcotics, fleeing police and weapons violations. Vinicio Humberto Navarrete Romero, an illegal immigrant, was arrested for many crimes, but released into the community repeatedly. He went on to allegedly rape a woman on a trail in Fairfax County. Abraham Gonzalez, Venezuelan gang member, arrested in Denver for aggravated assault, motor vehicle theft and felony menacing. Denver gave ICE only one hour's notice before forcing officers to arrest him in a public parking lot where an officer was assaulted. Those aren't policy disagreements, those are public safety failures, a willful desire to hold the community or put the community in danger. Beyond those individual cases, we've seen tragic losses around this country, not just of the angel families here today, but Laken Riley, killed by a Venezuelan national unlawfully present in the US. Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother in Maryland, raped and killed by an illegal alien from El Salvador, later convicted of first-degree murder. Jocelyn Nungaray, 12-year-old girl in Houston, sexually assaulted and murdered by two Venezuelan nationals unlawfully present in the US, they have been charged with capital murder, and we could go on and on. So Madam Secretary, what is the value of an ICE detainer and why is it such an important public safety tool?

Well, a detainer that we would lodge with a local law enforcement jurisdiction lets them know that when they are going to release that individual out to the public, that we would like to take custody of that. When we have detainers that are honored, we can go into a courthouse, we can go into a jail or a prison, and in a safe environment take custody of that individual, take them to a detention center and remove them to their home country. When they don't honor our detainers, that individual's released out into the streets, and what we know for a fact is hundreds and hundreds of times, thousands of times across the country, those individuals reoffend. And what they're doing by not honoring detainers is creating more victims.

When ICE issues a detainer, you're not asking local officers to conduct immigration sweeps in neighborhoods, you're requesting simply notice before release or a brief lawful hold so you can assume custody, right?

That is correct.

If ICE is requesting a short hold, that means that the individual's already in state or local custody.

Correct.

And individuals in jail are there because there was probable cause for arrest and in many cases because they've been convicted of crimes, right?

Correct.

And so when these sanctuary policies are enacted, they put the community at harm, they put your agents at risk and even the perpetrator at risk. And Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back but I request I have some UC requests.

Gentleman's recognized for UC.

Thank you. Radical rhetoric by sanctuary politicians leads to an unprecedented 1,300 percent increase in assaults against ICE officers and a 3,200 percent increase in vehicular attacks.

Objection.

Which sanctuary jurisdictions have released the most criminals?

Objection.

Virginia Governor Spanberger faces blowback after releasing illegal immigrant who stabbed a woman to death.

Objection.

Spanberger urged to cooperate with ICE after alleged killing by illegal immigrant.

Objection.

Sanctuary cities pose an unacceptable risk to public safety.

Objection.

When did safety become a license to defy the law? The dangers of sanctuary cities.

Objection.

The DHS shutdown, a reckless gamble verging on madness.

Objection.

Can we finally agree that sanctuary cities are a failed experiment?

Without objection.

The not so fine line between sanctuary and threat.

Objection.

DHS funding remains in limbo as GOP lawmakers warn of retaliatory attacks.

Objection.

Democrat rep whines about DHS harassing illegal alien he brought to State of the Union.

Objection.

New Maryland bill means more victims of migrant criminals, DHS warns.

Objection.

If you're an illegal stabbing someone isn't enough for this country to lock you up.

Objection.

Coast Guard addresses recent media reporting.

Objection.

Current shutdowns impact on immigration agencies from DHS.

Objection.

U.S. ICE examples of egregious criminal aliens released into Illinois.

Objection.

The Independent, police arrested and charged Rafael Govea Romero.

Objection. I think the gentleman may have set a record here.

Yeah, he has set a record.

February 18th, 2026, response to Representative Gosar's letter from Secretary Noem.

Objection.

Another response from Secretary Noem dated February 4th, 2026 to Gosar.

Objection.

And also finally, DHS OIG highlights covert testing of TSA's checkpoint security screening effectiveness.

Objection.

Thank you. Yield back.

Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, welcome to the committee.

Thank you.

Gives me an opportunity to show you the eight letters that I have sent to you over the last year, only one of which have been replied to. So it gives me the opportunity to ask you the questions and try to get an answer. One of the things you're most famous for, probably your quote of quotes, is we're going to go after the worst of the worst. The murderers, the pedophiles, the rapists, etc. In my letters, I said I agree with you on those things. People who are in this country illegally or not citizens who commit those crimes should be deported. But the facts show that most of the people that you have stopped and tried to deport have not committed any of those crimes. In fact, they've committed no crime at all. I've got a study here from the Justice Department, Justice Department that shows that less than half as undocumented immigrants are less than half as likely as U.S. born Americans to be arrested for homicide. And the pattern holds for assault, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, theft and arson. And they're half as likely to be arrested for drug offenses. That's an NIJ study. In Tennessee, there was a study that was just in the Commercial Appeal, our local newspaper in Memphis, that shows the same, that they are very unlikely to commit offenses. For the folks that are here and your families, I'm sorry. It's terrible what happened to your to your children or your family members. But they are more likely and citizens are more likely to be attacked by United States citizens who are not undocumented who came here and are born here. They are more likely to commit these crimes. So why do you continue to talk about the worst and the worst when all the statistics show we're not stopping the worst and the worst, we're doing what Stephen Miller wants to do and set a record of deportations.

Can I can I respond to you now, sir?

I hope you will now. It's been a year.

Well, thank you for your letters and we have responded to those when I come in, when I came into office, there was years of letters that Mayorkas did not respond to that we had to backlog and respond to all the letters that he received as Secretary. In fact, one of those letters was 567 days old.

I just want to know about the letters I wrote you. Just tell me about the letters I wrote to you.

I have I have responded to over 1,490 letters that I've gotten from members of Congress in the last 11 months.

You could have done 1,498 and done mine as well.

That's just individual letters. Sometimes they had 60 to 70 signatures on them and we responded to every one of them.

Tell me about the worst of the worst.

The worst of the worst, sir, I think you've offended the families behind me today with that comment.

Did not intend to and I think it's wrong for you to suggest it. I'm commenting on the fact that individuals aren't violent reoffenders and you keep talking about the fact that these individuals that are in this country illegally don't harm families.

No, I didn't say that. I said they're less likely than people born here. I didn't say that they don't do it. The vast majority of, vast majority of these people behind me lost their children due to drugs, overdoses from drugs that came over the southern border. They have died from their kids being hit on accidents on the roads that illegal drivers were driving, truck drivers, Marcus Coleman and Delilah's father has told the story over and over again about how that individual...

All that's true and a given. That's true and a given, Ms. Noem, but you say you're only going after the worst of the worst and you're not. Go after the worst of the worst and if you did, people wouldn't find your department to be the worst department in the United States of America.

We do targeted enforcement based on intelligence and go after the worst of the worst. When we are on those enforcement actions, if there are people with those individuals, we confirm their identities as well to make sure that they have legal status in our country. We need to make sure that people understand that when you come into this country illegally, overstay a student visa, if you don't go in for your court appearance, if you're out of legal status...

I'm going to reclaim my time because I'm reclaiming my time, Madam Secretary, please. That's one issue. Another issue is the fact of training. And an ICE Academy has Ryan Schwank, a former instructor and immigration and customs enforcement attorney, joined ICE in 2021 and resigned February 13th because he wanted people to know that he received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant. He says the time the studies to constitutional law and deadly force have all been cut down. Instead of doing eight hours a day, they do 12 hours a day. You've increased...

Sir, the gentleman you're referencing was detailed to FLETC for training for a couple of months. He's a trial attorney. He was never there before we changed the curriculum. He was only there for a couple of months after we had changed it and made sure that it was six days a week, 12 hours a day. All of the individuals received all the training they did before and more.

I've got 27 seconds left. In them 27 seconds left, I reclaim my time. I taught police law. You get more learning in the less time you give them. If more time, they learn less because their brains start to go other places. Do you have any people that you've hired who were January 6th offenders?

Not that I know of.

Can you find go in your records and tell me if anybody who you hired was a January 6th offender?

I'll get back to you on that.

Thank you. Yield back.

Gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Massie.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Noem, I'd be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to thank you for your service as governor during the COVID epidemic. When so many governors and mayors used their power to limit freedoms, I think you along with Ron DeSantis exercised great discretion by trusting the people that you worked for, basically your citizens, to make their own decisions about vaccines and mandates and lockdowns. So my hats off to you for for your service there. And I know the job you have now is extremely difficult. Today here on the dais, it's going to be partisan, I know that. But keep in mind that the majority of Americans support the work that you all are doing and we want to make it easier and we want to make it safer for the citizens and for your officers who are carrying out this difficult work. So one of my questions is deals with body cameras. I've talked to my local law enforcement, sheriffs and police departments in my district, Republicans and Democrats who hold those offices and almost unanimously they support body cameras and so do the the officers and deputies who work for them because they believe it protects the officers as much as it protects the citizens who may be offending the law in some way and need to be arrested. So I want to ask you for an update on body cameras and your opinion on that. That's something that the Democrats have demanded, but it's something that I think might just be common sense. So what's your thought on body cameras?

Yes, we certainly are working to get body cameras on all of our officers. CBP has had them on many of their agents that interact with people for the last several years, but they haven't been many times supported financially for running the systems that run the body cameras. Also ICE has body cameras deployed, but we're not funded for body cameras right now. So that's one thing I'd like to ask you all to do. I have said that we will deploy every body camera that we have and we are doing that. I think we now today maybe have 14,000 body cameras on agents that are out doing enforcement. But clearly we need tens of thousands more. And we need to be able to maintain them, have the analyzers that can go through the video to make sure that it is a situation that it's analyzed for these investigations. And I agree with you. Our our officers overwhelmingly, we train 130 different federal agencies and law enforcement officers at FLETC under the Department of Homeland Security. Overwhelmingly they support body cameras because they give you the full context context of the interaction. It can't just it's not just a snippet of 10 seconds that gets posted on the internet that people are trying to make claims on what really happened there. It'll give you the full context of the interaction and to know that these officers improve out that they followed their training.

So as a as a former member of Congress, I appreciate that you respect that we have the power of the purse. I do think we have allocated enough money, the current shutdown notwithstanding, to DHS, but perhaps we need to go and ICE a bit but perhaps we need to go back and make sure that your use of that money for body cameras wouldn't violate...

You were, yeah, you were pretty prescriptive in how you assigned those dollars to us. Even though ICE got $75 million, it was pretty prescriptive towards detention centers, contracts and airframe in order to move individuals out of the country. And so the the body cams and their maintenance ongoing into appropriation bills into the future needs to be addressed.

money for body cameras wouldn't violate. I know it costs money to keep all that video around and that's what my local law enforcement talks about. The ones who haven't adopted them, they just can't afford to keep the records like they're supposed to. But I hope we make sure that you have the funding for body cameras. I've only got about a minute left, but there was a memo about whether you need an administrative warrant or a judicial warrant to enter into residences. And you know, I'm a strong proponent of the Fourth Amendment and I think it would be helpful if we stuck to that. I know there are exigent circumstances sometimes where you're in pursuit or something of somebody, but I think for entering a residence or private property, it would be helpful to have judicial warrants. I give you 30 seconds to give us your opinion on that.

Well, I would tell you that all of our officers and at the department, we follow the Constitution and respect the amendments or the Fourth Amendment's incredibly important. In the 400,000 different instances where we've detained someone under administrative warrant, only 28 of those have been used to go into a home. So it's very rare, not very often. It is legal, it is justified and it is the tool that you have given us as a body and that the Supreme Court has confirmed. So we do use it, but it's very rare when we do. No, we do all that due diligence now. And it's very difficult to get adequate vetting from a country that doesn't have a stable government as well. So when there is that situation and they can't provide you with any information, that individual's not allowed to participate in any of the programs that would allow them to be here on a workman's visa or a student visa or information. If we can't do that vetting ahead of time and know truly who that person is and why they're there in the United States, they're not admitted. And one thing I would say is that since I've been Secretary, we've signed dozens of security agreements with other countries. With Central and South America we have to share information, to be able to give us their criminal. I've gone there and had them come here so that we could agree to share that information in the future. In the Middle East, incredible partnership on getting access to that. CBP has one of the world's largest databases of information on travelers around the world and how we cooperate and coordinate with these other countries helps us know when they're coming into our country. And I even negotiated the first extradition out of Honduras to help an angel family here in the United States to prosecute someone who was just convicted the other day of 21 years in prison for murdering Sarah Root. And that's the first time that country had ever extradited anybody for murder to the United States. And so by engaging on these cases, we not only get closure for families and justice for them, but we also do due diligence on who's in this country and what their intentions are when they get here.

All right, with that I yield back to the chairman.

Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes gentleman from Georgia.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Noem, last month your Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security is conducting an investigation into the brutal, cruel and senseless killings of Renee Good and Alex Preti. Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans loudly and publicly complained when in the minutes and hours after your agents shot Alex Preti to death in broad daylight, your DHS agents excluded BCA and Minneapolis police from accessing the crime scene. Your agents continued to physically block state and local law enforcement access to the crime scene even after they were presented with a search warrant issued by a judge that authorized their appearance at that location, the crime scene. And so with you having excluded them, that left your department's agents uniquely positioned to clandestinely seize and control all of the physical evidence from the crime scene, including body camera footage, phones, firearms, ballistic evidence and other physical evidence. Your attempts to hide the evidence from state and local law enforcement forced Minnesota officials to go into federal court to obtain a temporary restraining order preventing you from destroying or altering the evidence and ordering you to preserve the evidence. Madam Secretary, who was it that ordered you to deny state and local law enforcement agency access to the Alex Preti crime scene? Was it Donald Trump? Was it Pam Bondi? Was it Kash Patel? Or was it Corey? Whose idea was it?

Congressman, I will tell you it is not my role as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to conduct investigations at the federal level. Well, no, no, no, I'm asking, I'm asking who was it that instructed your agents to deny access to the crime scene to state and local law enforcement? I wish there would have been more local law enforcement there that day. The reason that that... Well, they were there, but your agency prevented them from accessing the crime scene. ...such a violent scene was because we didn't have local law enforcement out there supporting and helping. Who was it that gave that order to deny access to the crime scene? Sir, I don't make those decisions on the ground. Well, who made, who made the decision? Was it, was it, whose decision was it? I will tell you that within the agency for incidents... Was it Corey? Is it Corey? ...that are under investigation, they go through the office of... Well, you're not going to, you're not going to answer, you're not going to answer my question. That's fine, ma'am. I'm going to reclaim my time. As the Secretary of Homeland Security, you are the ultimate overseer of your department's investigations into the death of Renee Good and Alex Preti. Isn't that correct? Congressman, I will tell you it is not my role as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to conduct investigations at the federal level. Well, no, no, no, I'm asking, I'm asking who was it that instructed your agents to deny access to the crime scene to state and local law enforcement? I wish there would have been more local law enforcement there that day. The reason that that... Well, they were there, but your agency prevented them from accessing the crime scene. ...such a violent scene was because we didn't have local law enforcement out there supporting and helping. Who was it that gave that order to deny access to the crime scene? Sir, I don't make those decisions on the ground. Well, who made, who made the decision? Was it, was it, whose decision was it? I will tell you that within the agency for incidents... Was it Corey? Is it Corey? ...that are under investigation, they go through the office of... Well, you're not going to, you're not going to answer, you're not going to answer my question. That's fine, ma'am. I'm going to reclaim my time. As the Secretary of Homeland Security, you are the ultimate overseer of your department's investigations into the death of Renee Good and Alex Preti. Isn't that correct? We conduct investigations within ICE and CBP. Okay, fine. You're responsible for it. That was my question. ...to the officers to make sure they follow procedures and training. Within hours of these killings, you jumped before the cameras on national TV and lied about these victims, labeling them domestic terrorists before the investigation had even begun. Even your own ICE director has now admitted that they are not terrorists and that kind of comment could bias the investigation. Secretary Noem, will you acknowledge that your lies labeling Ms. Good and Mr. Preti as domestic terrorists could bias the DHS investigation into their killings? These investigations are ongoing. They're internal and external. Well, couldn't, couldn't, couldn't your comments have signaled what the conclusion of the investigation should be? The incident review committee within ICE will determine any actions that will be taken and within CBP it's the national use of force board that does those evaluations. Well, what, what you did was actually prejudice the investigations that your department is conducting, Madam Secretary. And you know, it's no mistake, your department has a pattern of obstructing investigations. A federal judge has lambasted your ICE director for lying in court. And you, the Inspector General just yesterday revealed to the public, your own Inspector General who was appointed by Trump has revealed that your department has been obstructing his independent investigations into your department and into your department's ability to investigate others. That is not true. In that letter that he sent to the Hill yesterday... Well, yeah, I mean, well, I want to, I want to enter, I want to enter into the record for unanimous consent two articles that document the fact that the Inspector General says that DHS has systematically obstructed its work. It's a WSJ, Wall Street Journal article dated March 3rd, yesterday.

Without objection.

And also a Politico article, Internal DHS Watchdog: Noem is obstructing our work. Without objection. How can the public think that you will give...

Time of the gentleman, time of the gentleman has expired. You've asked for two unanimous consent requests, without objection those are entered into the record. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald.

Secretary Noem, thanks for being here today. Despite the undeniable increase in terrorist threats at the border and in the interior of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas repeatedly misled this committee and the American people by asserting that aliens entering our country were being properly vetted and screened. When I asked him many times about whether or not the border was secure, his response was secure did not mean migration had stopped. It simply meant that resources had been deployed, enforcement processes were in place and legal authorities were being used in a proper way. Completely ridiculous. My question is related to the vetting process though. Can you just elaborate a little bit on how you had to reform and change that process compared to where we were under Secretary Mayorkas?

Well, if you're talking in specifics to programs under USCIS that were being utilized by the Biden administration to allow access into our country, we have put on pause a hold on green cards and naturalizations from 39 different countries of interest that the president had identified with the State Department. And Operation Allies Welcome has been a huge conversation as well. Those individuals are being revetted and they're being revetted by going back and interviewing them. Under the refugee program every year there's to be an in-person interview conducted in order to keep that status and to see if this individual is working to become a legal permanent resident or not. That was not happening at all. There was no interviews happening, there was no looking at social media and what they were out there putting on the internet as far as thoughts and opinions and how they were being successful assimilating into getting a job or you know, how their kids were doing in school. All that vetting is being done and background information now to make new determinations on individuals, not just that were here under that program, but that came in under the Biden administration that we know that that due diligence on vetting wasn't done.

So there's another small change I hope you can just discuss and that is former border chief and now with CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, he testified to our committee in 2023 that an illegal alien was only screened against U.S. criminal databases and not against databases from the alien's country of origin, which makes no sense. I mean, obviously, somebody that didn't live in the states suddenly crosses the border illegally and the only thing that they had been utilizing was some kind of database which obviously did not include the individual that illegally crossed. I'm wondering, that must have been something you eliminated almost immediately or changed. I'm just wondering if you could discuss that. And this is the final thing I would ask you to comment on. The face-to-face interviews are critical, right? And they were not being done under the Biden administration at all. And it can be a brief interaction, but oftentimes it's when they determine whether or not this person is in the states and in a good status. Is that not true?

That is true. And they placed a lot of weight on a letter of recommendation from another agency. So many times some of the other protocols were not checked if they just had a letter of recommendation from someone else in the federal government. We've stopped that and even if we do get someone who recommends someone as a refugee, we still vet them thoroughly.

Thank you. I yield back, Chairman.

Thank you. I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Swalwell.

Secretary, you have referenced many times the families behind you and I see the families and I see your pain and I see your loss. I see those who are still with us but have been hurt and changed. And I'm sorry that this has happened to you. And I see you, I know my colleagues see you, our country sees you. And I thank you for being here today. Secretary, my question for you is do you see families like Miguel Lopez, who was a neighbor of mine in Livermore, California? Miguel had lived in Livermore for over 30 years. He raised his three children in Livermore. His youngest is a senior at a local high school, just finished his football season. Miguel worked at a winery where my wife and I were married almost 10 years ago. Miguel had done everything that was asked of him, went to every immigration proceeding that he was supposed to go to. And in April was put in handcuffs as he was following the orders of the court and going to the proceedings. He was arrested and sent to Mexico over a judge's objection that he not be sent to Mexico and he stay in the United States. Every Sunday night his wife Rosa and the family have a dinner and there's an empty chair at the dinner table. Miguel's not there. I went and saw Miguel in Mexico. He doesn't have a job, he's not able to provide and he said his Spanish isn't even that great because he hasn't been there for 30 years and it's hard for him to communicate. Do you see the pain of families like Miguel Lopez, someone who did not commit a violent crime but has been separated from his family and is not providing, is not working? Do you see that pain?

Congressman, did he have a criminal record?

Did Mr. Lopez have a criminal record? In 1995 he pled to a lesser non-violent charge. But do you see the pain?

I do see that, I do see the pain, and I wish people would do things correctly. If they're not in legal status in this country, they can return home, we will pay for them to return home. I hope he got the $2,600 he could have gotten.

Do you think that makes up for not being with his family?

I think it helps, it helps because we have agreements with these countries where they are helping to facilitate housing.

It was a non-violent crime, Secretary.

But then he gets the chance to come back the right way. Now that he's waited until he's been detained and deported, he will never get the chance to come back to the United States.

It was a non-violent crime.

I just wish that he would have made the right decision and decided to go home to help his family and him to be together. They have choices that they can make to be together and we're hopeful that they will continue to do that.

The President also, by the way, is a convicted felon, if you want to talk about criminal records. Secretary Noem, did you or your staff fire one of your pilots recently?

No.

No pilot was relieved of their duty?

No, not that I'm aware of.

So the story in the Wall Street Journal was incorrect?

That individual was not fired. Do you know how many years it takes to get a military officer to be fired? That story was completely inaccurate.

Was he asked to not fly the next day?

It was not accurate, and I was surprised that the Wall Street Journal would print that many inaccuracies in one article.

Well, the Wall Street Journal is not a liberal newspaper of record. Well, tell me then, has a single ICE agent or CBP officer, has a single ICE agent or CBP officer been disciplined since you've been Secretary of Homeland Security? As we've seen women dragged through the streets by their hair and thrown into unmarked cars, people chased through the fields and factories where they work, public executions happening in our streets, has a single ICE agent or CBP officer been disciplined?

Yes, they have.

How many?

I don't know the number, I can get that for you if you'd like me to.

Do you think that number's important?

I think that it's wise and smart and what we're doing is accurate according to the law by doing those internal investigations through the process that's set up. There's an Office of Professional Responsibility that does the investigation and decisions are brought before the National Use of Force Board and they review each incident as objectively outside of that law enforcement encounter and then give a decision.

Has anyone been fired? Has anyone lost their job?

There could be.

Well, I'm not asking if it could be, I'm asking has anyone been fired?

I'm certain that they have. That happens once in a while when there is a need for someone to be held accountable for conduct related to enforcement actions. We hold our law enforcement officers accountable and are grateful that they serve, that they put their lives on the line and also recognize that when these situations that they follow their training and the legality of the course to how they interact with the public.

Yield back.

Gentleman yields, I recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Tiffany.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, how many countries does your department currently list as recalcitrant? That's question one. Question two, have you notified the State Department of those countries' status? And let me set the questions up a little bit before you answer them. So question one is how many are listed as recalcitrant and have you notified the State Department? So at the end of the Biden administration, they had listed 13 countries as being recalcitrant, which means they were delaying sending or they were delaying or completely refusing to accept return of their nationals when we attempt to deport them. You know, the list includes Communist China, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan, Somalia, and others. And under the Immigration Nationality Act, DHS notifies the State Department that a country is non-compliant. Is DHS notifying the State Department of people who are that are here in this country from recalcitrant countries?

Yes, but all that decision making is made in conjunction with the State Department. They help us with that. The travel documents for our detainees that need to be returned back to their home countries, those are coordinated and produced by the State Department. That's why individuals within our detention centers at times will wait for that paperwork to come through so that they can be returned home. Some of those countries that don't receive their own citizens home, the State Department helps us through diplomacy means to agree to that. Some limit the amount they will take each week, and then we have third country removals as well where someone from their country if they can't return there, we may place them in another agreeable country that will host them so that they're out of the United States.

Yeah, one of my biggest concerns is that in 2023, a Chinese government official openly bragged about allowing that they did not allow the United States to repatriate Chinese illegal aliens and we know they are the greatest threat out there. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit a news report on that matter from the Washington Times. No objection. So do you know are we still issuing visas to Chinese nationals given their long time and unapologetic refusal to cooperate with our deportation efforts? Doesn't seem like China's changed their the way they're doing business. Are we still issuing visas to Chinese nationals?

I believe that we are, but I can get an answer back to you.

If you would, that would really be that'd really be appreciated. Before the Biden administration left office, they put out a rule that was built upon the Obama administration's Guam Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands visa waiver program. And essentially allowed Chinese nationals to be able to sidestep the visa process that we have and gain entry into the Mariana Islands with no visa. And myself and Senator Scott have introduced a bill in reference to this. And as a result, after the Obama years or actually during and after the Obama years, you saw this explosion of birth tourism where actually Chinese mothers were having more children on the CNMI islands than United States United States residents. And I think that's really a big national security, public safety, and immigration fraud concern. And I sent a letter to your agency back in February and we have not received an answer. Can we get an answer to that?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, I just met with the Governor there and we talked about them wanting that back and me recognizing that they needed to come in compliance with some of those security concerns first. So yes.

Do you know are Chinese nationals still being admitted on the CNMI sidestepping the the normal visa process?

I don't believe they're sidestepping the visa process. They do come as tourists, I believe, and that's one of the things that they would like to have is address some of their tourism industry and how it's been struggling because we've been so strict about what happens there in regards to Chinese nationals.

Do you believe that birth tourism like I referenced earlier that we saw this explosion during the Obama years, do you think that has been brought to heel under this administration?

I do.

If you could provide some information in regards to that, that would really be appreciated. I would just ask one final question. Are you actively we've seen the immigration fraud, right? And my district runs right up to the Twin Cities in Western Wisconsin as well as across to America. Are you actively rooting out the Department of Homeland Security that immigration fraud that is going on? Because I can tell you my constituents are very concerned like when we see with the truckers. I mean, I-94 is as you're well aware 20 miles from Minneapolis leading into Western Wisconsin. They're very concerned about this. Are you guys dealing with this immigration fraud?

Yes, we are. We are, and we've already revoked naturalization and citizenship and legal permanent residencies from thousands of people because of immigration fraud. And now investigations are ongoing into prosecution.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Lieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Noem, for being here today. I served on active duty in United States Air Force. I agree with you that we must have strong borders and that undocumented immigrants who have final removal orders or commit a violent crime should be deported. Now the reason the overwhelming majority of Americans have turned against you is because you have engaged in corruption, strayed from your mission, and abused your power. Masked anonymous federal agents have killed three Americans. Federal agents are illegally conducting surveillance of Americans exercising their First and Second Amendment rights. And your agents are arresting people who should not be arrested. I'm now going to show you a slide of Liam Ramos. [Video plays.] This is a picture of your agents detaining Liam in Minnesota. He's wearing a blue bunny hat. Let me ask you, did Liam commit a crime?

Liam was not detained, his father was. And his father abandoned him. And when they went to try to return Liam to his mother, she wouldn't come out of the house and get him either. So therefore Liam's father chose to take Liam with him.

I believe you're not telling the truth. School officials at the scene say there are people in the house saying they could take care of Liam. And a federal judge rejected the arguments that your agency made. The federal judge stated in fact that this incident originated in, quote, "the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas. Apparently even if it requires traumatizing children." And then he forced your agency to release Liam, fly him back all the way from detention center in Texas back to Minnesota, and release his father as well. Now I'm going to show you another picture. It's of Amalia, who is a toddler that ICE also detained. Let me ask you, did Amalia commit a crime?

No, she did not. She is with her family.

Right. And the reason she's with her family is because she almost died in ICE detention until folks brought a lawsuit forcing the release of Amalia. Now you may wonder, well why is ICE going after children? And it's because study after study shows that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, commit less crimes than native-born Americans. So I'm going to put up this slide from NPR. It actually describes also a study that in Texas, immigrants committed less than 37 percent of crimes compared to native-born Americans. And this has now resulted in your agents having to go after people such as children who should not be detained. So now I'm going to show you a video from New Jersey where fourth and fifth graders are running away from ICE agents. I'm going to show you a second video, this time from Minnesota, where your agents are terrorizing children being dropped off at school. So Secretary Noem, will you commit to stopping ICE from doing operations at or near school bus stops, school drop-off locations, and school campuses?

Our ICE officers do targeted enforcement operations and they follow the same protocols that other law enforcement do in having those interdictions happen not in public places. That they do it to where a situation in someone is more isolated and alone so that it can protect any people that would be around at that point in time. So those clips that you show are not the full encounters of how those folks were evading law enforcement interdiction and ended up near that school. Those law enforcement officers did not target that school or conduct their operation near there. The evolving situation on the ground would have been helpful to have local law enforcement backup on the scene to help secure locations. And these individuals and law enforcement officers followed the same enforcement techniques, use of force techniques, and training that others do.

So thank you, I'm going to reclaim my time. I just showed you a video with ICE officers at a school drop-off location. So your refusal to commit to stopping these operations at or near schools and drop-off locations is why you're failing. So I'm going to show you this video that encapsulates why you are failing.

[Video plays.]

It is not who we are. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Madam Secretary, if you need a break anytime, just have your team let us know and we'll be happy to do that. We do have a couple who got to run, so we're going to try to get a few more in if that works. Let's go with the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Knott is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, thank you for being here. I am pleased with the results we've discussed. To the Angel families, I'm going to apologize for my colleagues. They issue crocodile tears, they issue fake sympathy, and then they continue to defend the open border policies that enable preventable crimes that brought you here today. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that they are still continuing to defend illegal immigration and act like it is not a mortal wound to this country. Your country failed you and I'm sorry. Madam Secretary, very quickly, does illegal immigration help or hurt the quality of healthcare for Americans?

It hurts the quality of healthcare.

Does it help or hurt the quality of public education?

It hurts the quality of public education.

Public safety?

It hurts public safety.

What about the quality of social safety nets?

Yes.

Does it help or hurt?

It hurts. It diverts the resources away from American citizens who need the service of those programs.

Does it help or hurt local law enforcement?

It hurts them, stretches their resources too thin.

What about the availability of housing?

It's driven up housing costs.

What about the cost of insurance?

Insurance is higher.

What about wages for American workers?

They steal wages out of pockets. In fact, one of the most compelling stories if he could ever get the chance to tell it is Marcus's. He was a truck driver for years. When he worked for that company, he was paid 70 cents a mile. He said now they pay their drivers 40 to 45 cents a mile because they're all illegal aliens.

Does it help or hurt American children?

It hurts American children.

What about low-income families? Does it help or hurt Americans who are on the lower spectrum of the income table?

It hurts them. And most of our public housing and assistance, many of them were filled with illegal immigrants instead of families who really needed the help.

And the number that I find most staggering as a federal law enforcement officer that is neglected over and over and over again is since the year 2000, 1.3 million Americans have lost their lives because of drug overdoses. Nobody talks about that cost. Yes, Americans are involved, but that does not happen without open borders and illegal immigration. That's an incalculable cost. Lost families, lost creativity, lost culture. Talk about a blight on our country's future. Losing 1.3 million Americans in 26 years. And rather than condemn this blight, elected Democrats, activist judges, activist bureaucrats, rather than assisting you in getting illegal immigrants out of the country, rather than just simply saying if you're here illegally, leave, they fight you at every turn. Can you please describe briefly the obstruction that you've had to endure in trying to remove people who are here illegally by my friends on the other side of the aisle?

Well, activist federal judges many times force us to cease operations or to stop detaining individuals while we go to appeal and have to win at a higher court that is more fair and recognizes the legality and the constitutional rights that American citizens have and how our law enforcement operators and officers do their work each and every day. So it is...

What about local law enforcement in sanctuary jurisdictions? Have they obstructed your efforts?

That's one of the reasons why you see so many of our agents in an area when we have to do targeted enforcement is that we also have to, because we don't have the back of local law enforcement, have to secure the scene and make sure we're prepared for any kind of a situation that might come up.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to close with this to any of the members of the audience and the Angel families who are here for your own personal tragedy. If you believe that the open border advocates in the Democratic Party care more about you as opposed to illegal immigrants, I want you to stand up. Not one person. Not one person is standing up. Not one person on the other side of the aisle is committing to help you, Madam Secretary, remove people who are here illegally. And it really ticks me off when people say they have not committed a crime, so we shouldn't deport them. What that is saying in another sense is we want an American to be victimized from someone who is here illegally before we take action. That's disgusting. If you're here illegally, you should leave the country. That should not be too radical.

Gentleman yields back. We have a couple unanimous consent requests from the ranking member.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Politico, April 25, 2025, judge says two-year-old U.S. citizen appears to have been deported without due process.

Without objection.

And the Guardian, January 27, 2026, five-year-old deported to Honduras despite being U.S. citizen is latest child victim of Trump crackdown.

Without objection. The committee will be in recess for 10 minutes and then we will resume with the Secretary. The committee will come to order. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Washington for five minutes.

Thank you. Secretary Noem, do you know what the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution says?

Search and seizure processes. What about it?

What about it? What about search and seizure?

It guarantees the right to a lawful search and seizure.

It protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. And I ask you that because I've sent you three different letters going back to February of 2025 raising concerns that you are unlawfully detaining U.S. citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It was not until yesterday afternoon, more than a year after I sent you my first letter, that I finally received a response from you stating that ICE has detained 18 U.S. citizens. I want to introduce you to just four of the U.S. citizens unlawfully detained by ICE who are not even included in the 18 individuals that you cite in your response to me. They're in this room with us, and I invite each of you to stand as I read your story. Patricia O'Keefe was monitoring ICE agents when they deployed pepper spray into her car vent without provocation. They smashed her car windows, pulled her and her friend out, arrested them for quote obstruction and detained them. Patricia saw an entire area dedicated to detaining U.S. citizens, and an ICE agent also said, quote, you guys have to stop obstructing us. That's why that lesbian bitch is dead, end quote, referring to Renee Good. ICE detained Patricia for over eight hours. Ryan Ecklund was monitoring ICE activity in his car when ICE agents blocked him and took his photo, then appeared to use that photo to go to his neighborhood and try to intimidate him. He was still in the car when they approached him, pulled him from his car and put him in leg irons. Ryan was detained for six hours. ICE agents shot Wesley Powers with a pepper ball while he was peacefully protesting ICE activity. ICE detained him for eight hours, gave him no medical assistance, leaving him in clothes that still had dangerous chemical residue. When doctors examined Wesley after his release, the medical professional opinion was that what ICE agents did to him constituted assault. Edmund Higgins is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. While legally observing ICE, he honked his horn a couple of times, and when he saw agents driving down a narrow road, he actually drove away. But agents chased him until he sought refuge at a local police station. When agents drew their firearms and pointed them at Edmund, well-trained local police officers diffused the situation, but your agents still insisted on detaining Edmund for six hours. Secretary Noem, yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, you stated that ICE agents may arrest U.S. citizens in the situation where they were obstructing law enforcement or in situations where you have reasons to doubt that they're a U.S. citizen. Is that still your position?

I said or probable cause.

So let me ask each of the U.S. citizens in the audience who were detained. Raise your hand if you were not charged with any crime following your detention. Not a single one of you were charged with a crime. Now raise your hand if any of you were not even asked to prove that you were U.S. citizens during your detention. Not a single one of you were even asked about your citizenship status, making it clear that DHS agents simply don't care that they're arresting U.S. citizens. Now please raise your hand if you were detained by ICE simply for legally protesting or monitoring ICE activity under your First Amendment rights. All four U.S. citizens have raised their hands that they were detained simply for legally protesting or monitoring ICE activity. Secretary, these are not four isolated incidents. ProPublica's reporting puts the number at over 170 U.S. citizens detained in just the first eight months of the administration, which doesn't even include Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. None of these four U.S. citizens were charged with a crime, none had their citizenship questioned, and all were lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights. Do you have anything you want to say to them or the millions of American citizens across the country that are watching this and horrified at what your department is doing?

Well, context is critical in each of these situations to know the full range of what happened in each of these situations before and after the incident and their arrest.

Secretary, not a single one was charged with a crime. Not a single one and they were detained. And let me just reclaim my time for my final seconds. DHS is supposed to be protecting our residents and upholding constitutional protections, but you've turned that on the head. You have actually turned the United States government against its own residents, and you've had multiple chances to take accountability, to apologize to these folks and others across the country, but you have failed to do it. Yours is a case of failed leadership, Secretary. You need to resign, be fired, or be impeached because you don't have the right to lead this agency. I yield back.

[Crosstalk.]

The time of the gentlelady has expired and she yields back. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized.

Thank you. Secretary, thank you for being here. Sorry you got to go through some of the stuff you're going through today, but I guess that's what they tell me, it's part of the job, right? You know, I don't know where to begin because, I mean, let's, I guess we begin at the beginning. Let's get back to the real elementary issues here, why we are where we are. This does not happen in a vacuum. And the first danger I want to talk about, just to put it in context, is the open borders. Millions upon millions of people let into our country illegally, purposefully, knowingly, without question, even at times knowing that they were criminals, that they were indicted or convicted from their country of origin, we still let them in and we release them on these people. These people who've done nothing wrong, these people who have brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, children who died. So I'm going to ask you some simple questions, and I know you know the answers to them, but I want to bring this back into context. Under the previous administration, with all that you've seen now and holding this office, did we allow known criminals in our borders in the United States of America, dangerous people? Did we allow them?

Yes, yes sir, not just criminals, known and suspected terrorists.

And terrorists. Thank you. People on the terror watch list. You know, across the country we've seen crimes committed by individuals who were here unlawfully, we know that. You know, I could mention Laken Riley, I could mention Rachel Morin, I could mention Kayla Hamilton, I could mention just this last week, as you know, Stephanie Minter. I'm not going to go into their stories because to be honest with you, if we went into the stories in depth enough and even hear from the families, I think most of us would be in tears. It's awful. It's horrible. It's un-American. It disgusts me that it happened. There was no reason to have it happen. If immigration, Secretary, if immigration law had been enforced properly, would those crimes have been prevented?

Yes, if those individuals were not allowed to be in this country, if we had a secure border and they weren't allowed to come in, they wouldn't be here to commit those crimes.

Thank you. Now you know you'd think the folks on the left would want to fix this. They created the chaos, but you'd think they would want to fix it. One of the ways to fix it is to work with federal law enforcement when they are on the street to do crowd containment, to do other things that help the federal officials because one of the reasons that we see everything that we see on the street and we see those videos is that local law enforcement, and when you talk to them off the record, they're not allowed in these blue cities, sanctuary cities, sanctuary states to help out. The job of ICE is not really crowd control. That's something they should do. And by the way, let's talk about what a peaceful protest is. Peaceful protest you're holding placards up, you're chanting, you may be giving speech, you're not spitting on federal agents and law enforcement, you're not kicking them, you're not shoving them, you're not beating them, you're not screaming in the ear, you're not have high-powered whistles in their ear, you're not kicking their vehicles in their taillights. That is not a peaceful protest. Go and do, and you talked about New Jersey. I'm from Jersey, right? Go in New Jersey on the Garden State Parkway and a police officer, a trooper comes along, spit in his face, start pushing him around. What do you think they're going to do to you? They're going to arrest you. Those people shouldn't have been doing that. Protest yes, it's in the best spirit of America. That was not a peaceful protest. Would you agree?

I would agree, sir.

So the second danger is the lack of cooperation. The next danger, again my friends on the left they say they want to fix it, how terrible everything, the second danger is when we don't cooperate it leads to even investigating further and you find out that these sanctuary cities and sanctuary states, my home state, I was so hurt to see that our governor went out and said that she's going to have a portal. The Department of Justice is suing and I know that's not your responsibility, the Department of Justice, but think about it. I want everybody here to think about it when you walk out in the streets today. They're going to have a portal in New Jersey so that you can report where federal agents are so you give the criminals that much more of a head start and a chance to get away. Secretary, is that right?

It's correct what they're trying to do, but it's we're not, I will tell you that there's a lot, it doesn't have to be that way. We've got 1,400 different agreements with local and state law enforcement officers that partner with us under the 287(g) program and it helps them financially, we're willing to reimburse them for overtime and for their assistance in these situations and it works wonderful and the public is safe and that's why you don't hear about situations in Minneapolis where the violence, you don't hear about that in Memphis where you have a mayor that works with us.

Or in other states, exactly, because they don't allow this to happen. They're allowing the chaos. The real danger isn't cooperating, we should cooperate. The real danger is open borders. The real danger is releasing these people that we've released into the public. The real danger is not cooperating with federal law enforcement. The real danger is the politicians who do this for political gain. I am going to finish up and yield back, but just let me say thank you for what you do. They created a horrible situation here, we're trying to make it safe for America. Thank you, Secretary.

Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from California is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Secretary Noem. To the survivors, to the families, the angel families today, my condolences. I believe rapists, murderers, bad people, with or without documents, citizens or not, do not belong on our streets. Again, my condolences. Secretary Noem, you talk about targeted enforcement. I have a report here from my Orange County Sheriff, Orange County, California, sanctuary law state. 323 referred to ICE in 2025, 52 of them not picked up. So you talk about targeted enforcement, you're not picking up some of the worst of the worst when the local sheriff is calling you to please pick them up. Need to work on that, Madam Secretary.

I will, sir, if that is the case, we will fix that.

And I'm happy to give you this report before you leave.

That'd be great, thank you.

I'm going to submit it also for the record.

Without objection.

And Madam Secretary, is your department detaining U.S. citizens?

No, we are not.

Have you taken any American citizens to your facilities to be processed?

If they are children and families that want to stay together, then they have the option to do that.

Adults, adults. Have you detained American citizen adults?

I think there have been individuals that had probable cause that came into detention or an identity that needed to be confirmed and they were released when their identity was confirmed and released.

You talked earlier about context. Give you a couple of examples. Willie Winder, U.S. citizen, North Carolina. Saturday morning, sitting in his car waiting for food from a local restaurant. DHS agent approached him, asked him if he was a citizen. Gave that agent his real ID and in 15 minutes later he was allowed to go finish ordering his food. When he came back out of the restaurant, another CBP agent approached him. When he was getting in his truck, they broke his truck window, dragged him out of his car, and handcuffed him. Showed his ID, but they didn't believe him. Moments later, they released him. Joshi Viamar, U.S. citizen, again North Carolina, owns a landscape business. CBP agents grabbed him from behind, pushed him to the ground. His workers, his brothers were shouting he's a U.S. citizen. They still took him. Despite having identity showing a U.S. citizen, he was still carried out. Again, they weren't at a protest. These individuals were just minding their own business, going to work. So Secretary Noem, when I was growing up, ICE agents would stop me out in the street and they would ask me, are you a U.S. citizen? And my answer would be yes, and that was enough. Today, that's not the case. So what would you say, what do you suggest I tell my citizens back home? Have a passport with you all the time?

No, I would tell your citizens to be grateful they live in this country where President Trump is upholding the law. Those that are here illegally...

We are, but ma'am, if you're stopped as a U.S. citizen out in the street and you tell people you're a U.S. citizen and you're still held...

...should return back to their country or they will...

That is not the country we're supposed to live in.

...voluntarily help them self-deport if they would like to.

These are American citizens, ma'am. Do I have to tell my children to carry a U.S. passport?

No, I would not say they would have to. I would say if they are legal citizens...

But they're stopped and sometimes they take those passports, your agents throw them out and they grab them anyway. You are terrorizing American citizens. Let's turn to another one. Okay, databases. One of your ICE officers in Maine recently told an observer that they're creating a database. Are you creating a database, ma'am, of Americans?

No, we are not creating a database.

Let's watch a video here.

[Video plays.]

Tom Homan, who works for you, on Fox News recently said he wanted to create a database of people arrested during protests at ICE operations. What are you going to do with that database?

I don't know why he said that. We're not creating a database.

But he did say it. He works for you. He's not an agent, he's an employee.

He doesn't work for me, he works for the President. He doesn't work for me.

He also works for you, ma'am. What do you want to do with that database?

We are not creating a database.

This is a database of American citizens. Ma'am, I'm out of time, but what I'd like to do is send you a list of these questions that I've asked of you and have the opportunity to answer them to be clear and to be on the record. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Thank you for being here today.

Absolutely.

Gentleman yields back. I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement from Mr. Coleman and then also a further document that he put together about the July the story. Without objection, those will be entered into the record. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas.

I thank the Chairman. Madam Secretary, thank you for joining us here today. One of the individuals that are sitting behind you approached me during the break and said something to the effect of it is a gut punch to listen to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle characterize this situation the way they are and that they are not remotely understanding the impact on American citizens who lost loved ones directly due to the specific policy choices of the previous administration and the policy choices my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would put in place right now if they could and if they were empowered. Your predecessor was impeached. Your predecessor Mayorkas was impeached in part because he lied to me under oath in this room when he declared that there was operational control of the border and he knew full well and evidence indicated by his own admission that there was not operational control of the border. My question for you, Madam Secretary, is do you believe that many of the victims behind you, represented behind you, and the thousands of other victims, fentanyl poisonings and otherwise, would have been alive today if the policies of the current administration had been in place and in force under the previous administration under Biden and Mayorkas?

I do, sir. I believe that many of these victims, their situations were preventable. They didn't have to happen. I do, sir. I believe that many of these victims, their situations...

And this direct assault by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle on ICE, right, is this not an environment created significantly by they themselves? When you have the Minnesota Governor calling ICE enforcement the modern-day Gestapo, when you have the Minneapolis Mayor saying, telling ICE to get the F out of Minneapolis, when you have the Illinois Governor claiming the United States is essentially becoming Nazi Germany, when you have House Minority Leader Jeffries calling for people to quote, fight President Trump's enforcement agenda in the streets, end quote. Does that not create the environment that they decry right now, undermining ICE and endangering citizens, the very citizens you have behind me who expect us to do our job and secure the border and secure our communities?

Yeah, it's, I can't believe the way that they abuse these law enforcement officers who take an oath to go out and to protect this country and put their lives on the line and many times live in these communities. They live in these communities with their families as well, doing these jobs and recognize that their lives are put on the line too while they uphold the law that this country was built on.

Am I correct that on day one President Trump signed Executive Order 14159, Protecting American People Against Invasion, which invoked turn-away authority and refers asylum seekers to file for asylum in safe third countries like Mexico?

That is correct.

And did the President also sign a proclamation declaring a national emergency at the southern border, directing resources for the border wall?

That is correct.

Did the President also sign an executive order securing borders, ending mass parole such as the illegal CHNV program that was abused by the previous administration?

That is correct.

So did that not change things immediately within a day because the President came into office despite the protests by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that they needed to pass a ridiculous piece of legislation that would have codified 5,000 people a day? My question here is, now I want to turn it back on Congress. If we have a future Biden and Mayorkas, will those policies be able to be reversed on day one?

Yes.

Right. So should not this Congress do what we did in H.R. 2 in the previous Congress in codifying changes to asylum, parole, and the abusive policies on catch and release that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will 100 percent abuse if they're put back in charge and endanger the American people? Does Congress not need to pass that bill, codify it, send it to the Senate, and force the Senate to make that law so that no future president can endanger the American people?

Yes, please do that, and I believe President Trump has asked you to do that.

One last question in my 45 seconds. I'm sure the Secretary is well aware of what just occurred in Austin, Texas, a place where my family lives. A shooter went into a bar and shot up a bunch of University of Texas kids and other citizens in Austin. That shooter was wearing a sweatshirt that said property of Allah, had a Quran in the back of his car, was wearing an Iranian flag t-shirt under the sweatshirt. That individual came into the United States in 2000, overstayed his visa, then applied to be able to have LPR status on the back of an alleged marriage, then six years later got citizenship under Obama, then tried to get citizenship for two women, two different named women, then was arrested for a hit and run in 2022. That individual is now alleged to potentially have some ties to terrorism or whatever. My question for you is, we've had so much mass immigration, is not the President's policies on pausing certain countries' immigration a positive thing to stop that kind of stuff that we just had unfold in Austin? And a follow-up, should we not statutorily pause immigration to prevent those kinds of people from being in the communities of the United States?

The gentleman's time has expired, the Secretary can respond.

Yes, we have a real threat from countries that are sending us people that we have not thoroughly vetted. So we need to pause so I can go back and re-vet all those individuals, make sure that they are here and that they aren't here to do us harm. The other thing that I would say is I would recommend you fund the Department of Homeland Security. It tells the whole world that the Democrat Party has their priorities screwed up because they won't fund their own homeland. They won't defend where they live, where their families live, where Americans live. They are choosing to risk the homeland for a political point. And so I would ask that you would vote to fund this department so we can have all of our assets on the field and make sure that we're defending and protecting this country.

Thank you, Madam Secretary, I yield back.

The gentlelady from Pennsylvania is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Noem, I come with concerns today that under your watch, the Department of Homeland Security has created a culture of chaos and fear in our American lives and endangered our constitutional liberties. I want to focus on a particular aspect of DHS's misconduct which should concern every American and that has to do with DHS's ever-expanding practice of labeling anyone who criticizes this administration or DHS actions as a criminal or a domestic terrorist. Time and again, we've seen this administration use the full power of the government to silence or intimidate people who disagree with it and nowhere is that more true than with the Department of Homeland Security. When people have dared to speak out or push back, they've been assaulted, arrested, and now even killed. But what may have flown under the radar is that over the past year DHS has been ramping up its use of a lesser-known tool known as administrative subpoenas or summons. Under your leadership, DHS has sent record numbers of these summons to tech companies like Google and Meta, Reddit, Apple, Microsoft, and Discord, demanding without legal authority or probable cause that these internet companies unmask social media accounts and hand over the identity of the account users so that DHS can spy on them. Many of these requests have targeted accounts speaking out against brutal immigration enforcement tactics and speaking up to help people understand their rights or support their neighbors. This is core protected First Amendment speech. So I want to look at two recent examples of these DHS summons involving Americans in the Philadelphia suburbs, which I represent. In September, DHS targeted Facebook and Instagram accounts run by Montco Community Watch, a grassroots group that provides information about public ICE activities in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and shares civil rights and other resources to support its diverse community. DHS demanded that Meta turn over the identity of the administrator. In November, DHS demanded that Google share the address and other private information of a retired gentleman who hosts gatherings of friends to write postcards to elected officials after he sent an email to a DHS official identified in a Washington Post article asking that the agency consider decency in its efforts to deport an Afghan refugee who'd been an ally to American troops. Your agency asked Google to conceal its request to unmask him and then Homeland Security agents showed up at this gentleman's home to interrogate him. These are just two examples and in neither case was there any evidence of threats or criminal activity. Now these two American citizens were able to secure lawyers and challenge these illegal demands in court. We've seen that DHS's bad faith requests don't hold up and have been forced to withdraw these demands because they don't withstand legal scrutiny, but not every American who's targeted has the time or the wherewithal to challenge the federal government and that is the point. These efforts to unmask the administration's opponents are clearly designed to intimidate and silence those who oppose the administration's and particularly DHS's lawless policies. So Secretary Noem, can you tell us how many of these administrative summons DHS has issued in the past year to technology platforms seeking the identity or personal data of users who've criticized this administration and its actions?

The individuals that work at the Department of Homeland Security and specifically in investigations follow all federal laws and constitutional laws to ensure that we follow the right process.

I understand that you may not agree with this. Can you tell us how many subpoenas or administrative requests...

I can find out how many of those have been filed and I will get that back to you, I do not know that off the top of my head. What I would say...

Can you tell me who it is that administers that program? Is there anyone who's in charge?

I don't know which department or agency you're talking about because USCIS would do some of this, Homeland Security Investigations does the vast majority of our investigations into financial fraud, into immigration fraud, into fraud when it regards to what's going on in Minneapolis.

Okay, so it could be a number of different agencies within DHS.

Beyond that, we also have CISA, which is our cybersecurity agency.

You have defended DHS's actions repeatedly as using legal tools. But both the courts and DHS's own Inspector General have advised that DHS is misusing these tools in violation of the law and the Constitution. And that's exactly why no government agency is allowed to spy on Americans simply because they're sharing their opinions online. So I would request that you do provide that information to the committee.

We are not spying on individuals. If any administration was spying on people, it was the Biden administration.

It's spying on people when they're exercising their First Amendment rights. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from California is recognized for five minutes.

Good afternoon, Secretary Noem. I understand you have a lot on your plate and have an extraordinarily complex job protecting the homeland in its entirety. And as I know you understand, my job is to represent my constituents. And I did need to bring up today a few specific ways in which right now my constituents are not being well served by your department and see if we might be able to find a way forward. So there's a grant from one of the counties that I represent in Plumas County. It's a hazard mitigation grant worth $2.5 million called the Plumas County Ignition Resistant Construction and Defensible Space Project. It includes home hardening and defensible space in a partnership between Plumas County and the Plumas County Fire Safe Council to mitigate no less than 64 homes in this rural fire-prone region to reduce and or prevent physical damages to residential properties resulting from wildfires by conducting defensible space measures and residential retrofitting to be more fire resistant. I should note this is a county that has already been struck by one of the worst wildfires in state history. So this has been through all of the approvals, through Cal OES, through FEMA, and since June of last year, it's just been waiting for your signature, which I understand is a new requirement that anything over $100,000 needs the Secretary's approval. So our office reached out in December of last year because there was a time issue with December 31st being the date that matching state funds were going to expire. We didn't hear back and that deadline passed. Luckily we got an extension from the state. So then in January, after the extension was given until February 1st, our office requested a meeting between me and you, there was not a meeting granted. Luckily the extension of the state funds was extended until March. So in February, the grant remained unsigned, our office has heard nothing, we've gotten no updates from the Department of Homeland Security. We've been in constant contact every week. So do you have any idea why it is we can't get movement on this?

I don't, sir, and I'll find out for you, but I will tell you that it is not with my office. If this is a grant that has been held up, it's been held up at FEMA and I will get to the bottom of it. What I also would say is that I do not have a requirement that I sign off on grants of $100,000. I do have a requirement on reviewing contracts because I've found incredible fraud and inefficiencies and theft from American taxpayers in government contracting. But grants I do not, and that fund specifically would have come out of FEMA and I will find out and get that answer for you.

I appreciate that. Would it be possible to set up a call within the next couple weeks if we haven't had any movement?

I think we can figure it out here within a half hour of this committee being over.

Perfect. Because this is, you know, I agree with you it's very important to be vigilant with these funds, but wildfires cost a lot of money when they happen.

Oh, I understand. And we've had 60 disaster declarations since President Trump's been in office, 41 of them major disasters. FEMA is dispersing funds on grants and relief and public assistance and individual assistance twice as fast than it ever has in its history. So overwhelmingly effective.

I appreciate that. I can't speak to other projects and if that's true that's great, but there's that project in my district. There's also a project with the Placer County Water Agency. They've been waiting since August of 2024 for a budget modification on a project that's necessary to keep water flowing from the pumps there during public safety power shutoffs associated with wildfires. We've been waiting to hear since August of 2024. Is that something you might be able to look into for us as well?

I'll look into it. And the one thing that I think is good for everyone to be aware is that in order for FEMA to disperse funds, at times there has to be invoices turned in, costs proven out in order for that matching dollar and that grant to be awarded. We have found incredible fraud in some of these grants that were run by the Biden administration where they were diverted to DEI projects or to projects that had nothing to do with why that grant was created and we're getting it back on mission. So I'll look at those two and I will ensure that we look at them and make the right decision as to getting those paid out if they are due and if they fit the program and if they aren't fraudulent.

I appreciate that. And they're not, I can assure you. And we've got one more which is in El Dorado County. This is a $25 million project. Funding has been approved. There's matching state funds. It covers 525 homes for high wildfire risk. They've been waiting on the NEPA approval since January of 2025. Another very important project for fire mitigation in my area. So I just wanted to bring these to your attention. I've been very critical of Governor Newsom and the state leaders in California for not taking the issue of fire mitigation seriously and not doing what they should. So I do feel like I need to advocate with equal force for making sure that we're doing everything we can at the federal level to keep our citizens safe. And I appreciate it.

I think what happened there was tragic and a failure of local leaders to protect people and to help them. We will do all that we can and President Trump is committed to. But yes, the failure by Governor Newsom and also by Mayor Bass was incredible.

I agree with you there 100 percent. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Unanimous consent request from the gentleman from Texas.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record an article from the Hill Country Community Journal, Kerrville's hometown paper, outlining and is titled Kristi Noem Joins Governor in Support of Kerr Community Tours Areas of Destruction from last summer. I was personally there. Without objection. Secondly, I'd like to insert into the record an article titled Trump Recounts Daring Texas Flood Rescue Reunites Camper with Coast Guard Swimmer at State of the Union for the record. And I thank the Secretary.

Without objection. Gentleman from Colorado is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Madam Secretary. Thank you for being here. I want to discuss in greater detail the expansion of advertising in your department under your tenure. And I believe you testified regarding some of these matters yesterday in front of the United States Senate. In particular, I want to discuss the department's $200 million, $220 million ad campaign. This is the ad campaign that featured you at Mount Rushmore. You're familiar with this ad campaign, correct?

I am familiar with it. It was an ad campaign that was...

So let me, I'm going to ask you some questions about it, Madam Secretary. Okay. As I understand it, this is a $220 million ad campaign. It's split between two contractors. One of those contractors got $143 million. That contractor is called Safe America Media, correct?

Correct.

Okay. That company is affiliated with a former political director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Now yesterday you testified, I think I'm quoting you right, you said in reference to this contract that quote, it went out to a competitive bid. Do you stand by that statement?

It was a no-bid contract where two vendors were chosen.

It was a no-bid contract.

If it would have been a no-bid contract, if I'm using that correctly, it goes out to two different vendors.

Correct. So it was not a competitive... Let me try to explain what the discrepancy is. Because a competitive bid is very different than a no-bid contract. And I'll just explain why. We know that your testimony yesterday, when you said, again I'll quote, it went out to a competitive bid, is untrue. The reason we know it's untrue is because under federal law your agency is required whenever the agency decides to skip competitive bidding to file a notice with the public explaining why. And in this case, your agency filed a notice. You're aware of that, right? Justification and approval for other than full and open competition. Your agency made a decision not to proceed with competitive bidding and one of the contractors that got the award was this Safe America Media company that received $143 million.

Many vendors got the chance to look at that contract and to participate in it. So that is why the two of them were chosen.

Well, that's inaccurate. Madam Secretary, I'll read from the notice from your agency. Given the immediate action to significantly reduce illegal immigration and border crossings, DHS identified four companies. Four. Of the hundreds of thousands of companies in the United States, you identified four. One of those is this Safe America Media company. Where is Safe America Media headquartered?

I don't know.

I don't know either, Madam Secretary. We can't find it. We can't find a website. We did find an address that's registered for this company. Do you know where that address is?

Is there a problem with this contract because it was done according to law?

I'll tell you about it. Madam Secretary, the address is registered to a political operative in Virginia. Do you know, just by way of example, whether this company that received $143 million in taxpayer dollars, has it ever done work for the government before?

I don't know.

The answer is it has not. And do you know why we know that? Because it was incorporated eight days, eight days before this contract went out. You want the American people to believe that this is all above board? That $143 million of taxpayer money just happened to go to this one company that doesn't have a headquarters, doesn't have a website, has never done work for the federal government before, and is registered apparently or attached to a residence from a political operative? And of course, one of the subcontractors of that contract, as you know, is a political firm that's tied to you back when you were Governor of South Dakota. The reason why I ask these questions is that this is taxpayer money. And I presume, I don't know this for a fact, but Senator Tillis noted yesterday the way in which your agency is blocking the Inspector General from 11 different investigations that it is trying to conduct. I don't know if this happens to be one of them. I certainly hope it is. Because eventually the facts will become public in this regard. And there are serious laws implicated: conflict of interest laws, federal procurement laws, that I believe merit...

All followed. All done correctly. 14 billion impressions from that marketing campaign. It was money spent in this country and in eight different countries that illegal migration was coming from. Overwhelmingly effective.

Madam Secretary, we all understand the argument that you've made. The argument that you've made that somehow this ad campaign on Fox News of you at Mount Rushmore has led to millions of people self-deporting. You're using millions of dollars of taxpayer money in this way. It is fraud and ultimately I think there's going to be accountability. And I yield back.

Can I speak to the IG?

Yes, you can real quick.

The IG has been told repeatedly in writing, verbally, on the phone, that he can have access to anything at the Department of Homeland Security. He can. He doesn't need my permission to come and brief members of Congress on the Hill. He just needs to provide a scoping memo, which is what every single IG gets from every single department and agency. All intelligence agencies require a scoping memo. He just hasn't done that. He wants unfettered access to every single thing in the department and that's not the process and that's not any other IG has demanded that.

The gentlelady from Florida is recognized for five minutes.

Good afternoon, Secretary Noem. Thank you for being with us today. I would like to take just a moment to talk about the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS. As I understand it, the mission of CISA is to lead the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risk to our cyber and physical infrastructure. And CISA works to protect energy grids, pipelines, hospitals, financial networks, water systems, and all of the other sectors of critical infrastructure in the U.S. Is it a correct characterization that CISA itself plays a critical role in monitoring threats against the cyber and physical infrastructure of our country and working to prevent such attacks against our homeland?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, CISA has had billions of interactions stopping threats online from attacking not just our country for national security reasons but also our critical infrastructure, our electrical grids, our telecoms, our water systems. We work with state and local offices and agents and governments every single day to help them secure their systems as well, recognizing they feed into the protection of the federal government as well.

Isn't it also true that if a hostile nation or proxy launched a coordinated cyberattack against our domestic critical infrastructure systems that CISA would play a lead role in coordinating the federal response to that attack?

That is correct. CISA is charged with identifying vulnerabilities that we have in our systems and then also recommending mitigation measures that people can take to harden their systems. So we hunt down the bad actors and then harden systems to prevent those cyberattacks.

And particularly right now, given the ongoing tensions in the Middle East, do you expect that Iran and its cyber proxies may actually attempt retaliatory cyber actions against the United States and its infrastructure?

Yes, and they do. They do on a regular basis.

With that backdrop in mind, is part of CISA's workforce furloughed right now?

Yes, they are. About two-thirds of that agency is not in the office because the Democrat Party has chosen not to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

So there are components of the Department of Homeland Security and CISA specifically, as we've been discussing, that are dedicated to protecting the critical infrastructure of our country. Substantial portion of those staff right now are furloughed because Democrats have refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Is that right?

That is correct.

Secretary Noem, does CISA also have a role in protecting our nation's elections infrastructure?

Yes, the agency and the department is charged with protecting critical infrastructure, and elections are deemed critical infrastructure under the statute and law.

You touched on something a moment ago that is also particularly important as it relates to elections, and that is CISA's work to partner with state and local officials to make sure that everyone understands the threat landscape, preventive strategies, threat mitigation. Share with us a little bit more about CISA's work particularly with state and local election officials to make sure that our elections are secure.

Well, CISA works with other intelligence agencies to identify where there may be vulnerabilities in the election system, what kind of technology or components are easily susceptible to hacking, and then reporting that to states who are charged with running elections and letting them know where those vulnerabilities are. We can give them mitigation measures that can be taken to help protect those systems and what else they could do as far as recommendations on after elections doing auditing as well to ensure that if machines are used or if they are hooked online or had access to individuals who could be involved in hacking or corruption, that they have the ability to audit their election afterwards to ensure that it was accurate and that American citizens had their ballots counted.

Are these efforts by CISA also being negatively affected due to the shutdown of funding to your department at this time?

Yes, everything at the department's being affected right now. We have over 100,000 employees who are furloughed. We've got even law enforcement officers, security officers, TSA is not funded. Those individuals are showing up every day and working without any pay to keep our national security at the front and center for people that are traveling by planes across this country and they continue to do that. It is incredibly impactful on our administrative processes, on our contracting offices, on our ability to work across departments to share information. My hope is that today you are all successful in passing a funding bill for this department so that we have all of our players on the field to defend the country.

And in your opinion, Secretary Noem, does the Democrats' failure thus far to agree to fund the Department of Homeland Security result in a risk to our national security?

Well, we are doing everything that we can to defend the country and to protect the country. We'll continue to do that. They are making our job very difficult to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

The gentlelady yields back. The unanimous consent from the gentlelady from Pennsylvania.

Thank you. I'd seek unanimous consent to introduce an article from the Washington Post dated February 3, 2026, "Homeland Security is Targeting Americans with this Secretive Legal Weapon."

Without objection.

Also an article from the New York Times, February 13, 2026, "Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts."

Without objection.

And finally a report from November 16, 2017, the Inspector General of Department of Homeland Security, Management Alert, CBP's Use of Examination and Summons Authority under 19 USC Section 1509.

Without objection. The ranking member is recognized for five minutes.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I seek unanimous consent to enter the record a ProPublica article, November 14, 2025, titled "Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money from $220 Million DHS Ad Contract."

Without objection. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Georgia.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Noem, you claim that you are going after the worst of the worst. If you were doing that, I would really be cheering you on, but this simply isn't the case. That's false. Rodney Taylor, who is incarcerated at Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, he's a prime example. He's 47 years old and works as a barber. When he was two, he was brought to this country legally on a medical visa to address his extensive disabilities. He needed a medical medical care for a deformed left foot, a missing right foot, and three fingers missing on his right hand. Rodney has had 16 different operations and has been a double amputee since the age of 10 years old. Rodney received a criminal conviction when he was 17, nearly 30 years ago. However, Rodney was pardoned by the state of Georgia by Republican Governor Sonny Perdue. And since then, Rodney has lived a law-abiding life and has a green card application that's now pending. And no administration, including the first Trump administration, has sought to remove Rodney from this country. In January 2025, he entered ICE detention and his health has deteriorated quickly since then. Rodney has experienced several health challenges including bone spurs in his back causing severe pain. Rodney sought medical care multiple times while detained but was rejected. He is unable to use a wheelchair because his right hand only has one full finger, making it impossible for him to push it. He is unable to walk on his prosthetic legs because he's lost 20 pounds and they simply don't fit him anymore. On top of this, he's at the mercy of other detainees just to get food since he can't get himself to and from the cafeteria. Rodney's disabilities make it nearly impossible for him to shower. He went six days without showering because the detention center lacked the appropriate medical equipment. When he finally got a shower stool, he found moldy showers covered in feces and bodily fluids. Just yesterday, he was threatened with disciplinary action if he tries to use that shower stool. Rodney must crawl through that muck and squalor of feces and bodily fluids to enter and exit the shower. This is despicable. It's inhumane torture that no person should have to endure. And today we have Rodney's wife, Mildred Donis Taylor, and her daughters. Please stand. Who are United States citizens. Secretary Noem, can you honestly tell Rodney's wife and family and the American people that are watching that these cruel and unusual conditions are acceptable under your watch?

No, I'm not familiar with this case and I will certainly look into it and ensure that this center where Rodney is at is held to the same standards as all our federal detention standards, which are the highest in the nation overwhelmingly in comparison to other detaining facilities at the local or state level. The other thing that I would say...

I'm reclaiming my time, Secretary. I'm reclaiming my time. Did you just hear me what I described? Did you just hear what I described? He has to crawl through mold and feces and bodily fluids just to take a shower. He can't even get medical care. Every one of our detainees... This is absolute lunacy and you know it. Every one of our detainees gets medical care... Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. Ranking Member Jayapal, myself, and 20 of my colleagues, we wrote to you about Rodney's treatment more than two weeks ago. Yes or no, have you actually read the letter?

I know I have not heard of this case, so I will see where that letter is.

Well, let me tell you, I have the letter right here. And would you like to read it? Because I'm more than happy to bring a staff member down to it. That would be great. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that. I will look into the case. So then if you're going to look into the case, can you tell us how long it'll be before we actually get a response from you? Maybe two weeks?

No, I'll get you a response. I'll get the information.

Because we deserve an answer and Rodney's family definitely deserves an answer because this is inhumane treatment. And this leads me to believe there are so many other detainees that are being treated exactly the same way and this is despicable. Secretary, will you promise his wife and this committee and the American people that you will review, you've said that, but I want you to make a formal promise that you will review Rodney's case and provide a thorough response on whether it's in the public interest to keep him in these conditions and we'd like to know within the next two weeks. Are you telling me within the next two weeks?

Absolutely. I will review this case and I'll have a response back to you.

Good. Good. I will be following up with you as much as it possibly takes. I do want you to know, Mr. Chairman, if I may say, Rodney is not the worst of the worst. I reclaim my time. Rodney's not the worst of the worst. This is truly a miscarriage of justice and I yield back.

The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady from Wyoming is recognized.

Secretary Noem, I want to go a little bit different route here on some issues that are very important to Wyoming. There's an a very important enforcement issue related to my constituents in Wyoming. Sugar beet farmers are important for Wyoming's economy and the economies of so many other states. Unfortunately, foreign entities are circumventing our laws to bring in sugar and displace these hardworking farmers. I know that there is a Section 1516 petition in front of the CBP right now challenging these imports and would you please commit to us today to quickly addressing this petition to ensure that our laws and trade agreements are being enforced?

Yeah, I will look at that.

Thank you. Under the leadership of the House Judiciary Committee, this Congress is proposing decisive action to punish sanctuary cities and states for their illegal actions. Because the reality is that these so-called sanctuary jurisdictions should not be receiving the benefits of federal policies and programs while they are actively, intentionally, and publicly violating federal law. The Department of Commerce estimates that over 1.1 million foreign college students contribute over $50 billion annually to the communities where they attend school. The states receiving the majority of this benefit from the federal student visa program are sanctuary states such as California, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois. It is ridiculous for these sanctuary jurisdictions to profit from the legal immigration system while aiding illegal immigration. Secretary Noem, understanding that the student visa program is jointly run by DHS along with the State Department, have you considered applying scrutiny over student visas for students seeking to attend schools located within sanctuary jurisdictions?

Yes, we are and we're using the SEVIS program to do a lot of that work and partnership with the Department of State. I would say that the Department of Education has been very helpful as well in working with these universities and colleges to ensure that they recognize the benefits of being a student here in this country, being here on a visa, that it is a privilege that is afforded to those individuals and that the cities in which they're located in should be working with federal law enforcement officers and public safety officials to ensure a safe environment for everyone.

Well, I have introduced legislation, it's called the No Student Visas for Sanctuary Cities Act, that would cut off student visas for schools located within sanctuary jurisdictions until they comply with federal immigration law and they certify that compliance. I would appreciate the opportunity to work with you to implement this much-needed check on these rogue cities and states. Would you commit to working with me on that?

I will work with you on that.

Wonderful. One of the most dangerous consequences of the Biden-Harris border crisis is the rate and ease by which illegal aliens without basic qualifications like English language proficiency have obtained commercial driver's licenses or CDLs. President Trump's April 2025 executive order restored English language proficiency enforcement on our highways and rightfully brought heightened scrutiny to this issue. For example, over 50 percent of New York's non-domiciled CDLs were issued illegally to foreign drivers, while California has admitted to doing the same for approximately 17,000 non-domiciled CDLs. Unfortunately, these actions have tragically cost countless American lives with many others being critically injured, including that beautiful young woman who just left the room. Secretary Noem, can you speak to how your department has partnered with the Department of Transportation and state and local law enforcement to help catch illegal alien truck drivers?

Yeah, it's been a great partnership to help get this public safety threat off the roads. The Department of Transportation has jurisdiction over the actual CDLs and those driving schools, which some of them they've found and uncovered are fraudulent. They don't train anybody. They just hand out for a fee a driver's license to someone that they go and get on the road and not only are they putting people in danger, but they're also undercutting our American workers. And truck drivers have lost their jobs because they can't work for as cheap as these illegal aliens do. And I would say Delilah's father's one of them. He said he can't pay his bills at 40 cents a mile, but these illegals can because they're on public assistance when they come because they've been facilitated in, they don't pay taxes and then they can undercut American workers for jobs. What else I would say is that we work with our local and state law enforcement where we can to do interdictions on our roads to get as many of them off the road as soon as possible. I know the state of Indiana lost six people in just a very short period of time from these drivers killing innocent Americans and civilians.

I'll just give you some stats from the state of Wyoming, the least populated state in the nation. Earlier this year, the Laramie County Sheriff's Office led a three-day operation with support from ICE that resulted in 82 commercial trucks being stopped, 32 illegal immigrants arrested, and 51 tickets being written. How important are these types of federal-state partnerships to your operations when it comes to removing these dangerous actors from our roadways?

Oh, they're very incredible because the state and local law enforcement know how to make these operations effective. They know where we should be, where these truck drivers are, how we should do enforcement, and we partner with them in a task force model to do immigration enforcement.

Thank you for that and I yield back. Thank you for that and I yield back.

The lady yields back and unanimous consent... The lady yields back. Unanimous consent from the lady from Georgia?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a unanimous consent request since Secretary Noem claims not to be familiar enough with this case from March 2025, a CNN article covering Rodney's story. From June 2025, a Fox article titled, "Protests as ICE Detains Disabled Atlanta Barber Despite State Pardon," covering Rodney's story. An article from September 2025 titled, "Detained by ICE, Gwinnett Barber with Amputated Legs Petitions for Relief." And lastly, I'd like to also submit the letter that Ranking Member Jayapal, myself, and all of our colleagues sent to Secretary Noem in February.

Without objection. The gentlelady from North Carolina is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Noem, Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina almost a year and a half ago, killing more than 100 people and causing more than $60 billion of damage. Two months later, Congress passed a bipartisan disaster package which included $29 billion for FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund covering several states. And yet, despite this, countless North Carolinians have spent two winters paying mortgages and taxes on homes that are unlivable and may not even exist anymore. They have been waiting in limbo for your department to sign off on recovery funding. And I know Representative Kiley raised similar issues in his state. North Carolina's counties have had to step up to fill in the gap, spending their limited taxpayer funds on recovery and repair with the expectation that they would swiftly be reimbursed by the federal government. And yet, many of these counties have not been reimbursed until this week, but we'll get to that. Meaning that they have had to use all their money and not have money for their essential services: public schools, EMS, other public services, healthcare, and everything else. And I have met with some of the county executives who have struggled with their budgets while recovering from Helene. These delays in paying out this desperately needed recovery funds are simply unacceptable. And you heard that from my Republican senator, Senator Tillis, yesterday. Your new policy, and it is a new policy, requiring your personal sign-off on expenditures over $100,000 has contributed to many of these delays, creating a bottleneck, blocking reimbursement for hundreds of millions of dollars of disaster funding that stand directly between North Carolinians and that relief. In fact, Senator Tillis, as I'm sure you remember, lambasted you and the failure of your department in dispersing these funds. And then magically, about $80 million got released today, for which we're thankful. But we shouldn't have to have a U.S. senator or a representative or another representative come to you directly to get you to do your job. But we also know that you had time to sign off on the purchase of two luxury private Gulfstream jets for your personal travel, $170 million. And we've heard about the new Boeing 737 that you're in the process of outfitting. Evidently, you were satisfied that there was no fraud, waste, and abuse involved in the jets. But meanwhile, could you tell me whether you found any fraud, waste, or abuse in these North Carolina expenditures?

You know, Congresswoman, what I would tell you is that Joe Biden failed North Carolina.

Listen to me. I asked you a direct question. Joe Biden provided greater relief. Joe Biden showed up. Joe Biden didn't lie about what was going on on the ground. I don't even want to get into what Donald Trump did during the campaign, the misinformation that was put out there. And you cannot find the time until my senator berates you in public to approve this money. Individual members of Congress should not have to come to you. Our counties, our struggling counties in the western part of the state, are some of the most rural counties. They are poor counties. They do not have the money to front for you.

In the months that we have been here, we have deployed billions of dollars, billions more than what the Biden administration...

I am reclaiming my time. You have been too slow. I have heard this from Republican county commissioners. I have heard this from administrators. I have been in the western part of the state. I know exactly what's going on and you have turned a blind eye while you're busy trying to deport American citizens. And now I want to get back, reclaiming my time, to the second point that Senator Tillis made. You have not responded to him and the people of North Carolina about why you have picked up U.S. citizens, you've heard that from Representative Correa, why you have intimidated people who are here lawfully, and why you are threatening the economy of one of the most prosperous states in this country by practicing malpractice. You should resign or be impeached. I yield back.

Mr. Chairman, may I answer that question? The state of North Carolina has received billions more in Helene relief disaster assistance than President Biden did. In fact, every single...

Because we appropriated the money.

The lady yields back. Secretary may respond.

Every project has been obligated, it's been paid out. The state manages the response and those counties get their funding from the state, which has been allocated the FEMA dollars.

The gentleman from Virginia is recognized.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. Thank you for being here. The hypocrisy of my colleagues on the other side when they talk about appropriating money and yet refuse to appropriate money for your department. The gentlelady from North Carolina talks about doing your job. Would it help you do your job to actually have an appropriations bill passed by this House?

Well, yes, and I would remind them that the Disaster Relief Fund is overcommitted right now. That there are $4 billion there that is committed due to litigation, another $3 billion we keep for major disasters or ongoing. We've had over 12 states impacted by major disasters that haven't received a dollar yet in the last month. And that Disaster Relief Fund is overcommitted and needs to be refilled through that appropriations bill for us to continue to receive and help states like we have in North Carolina.

So relief for the people of western North Carolina is being held up by the failure of...

No, theirs have been paid. We have deployed billions of dollars. I have every month released hundreds of millions of dollars to North Carolina in projects where they've come in and approved the project and it's at that stage to where it can be obligated to their state.

Is preparedness for future disasters in North Carolina and other states being held up by Democrats who refuse to vote for appropriations bills that would fund your department?

Right now the department, because of the lack of funding, has to prioritize actions that are life and limb and crisis situations. We aren't able to do training, we aren't able to go out and and do the daily business work of contracting and grants and...

Let me quote some more hypocritical Democrats who are refusing to vote for appropriations measures to fund Homeland Security but are saying things about our efforts in Iran. Congressman Subramanyam says, "We need to get serious right now protecting Americans in the Middle East." Does it protect Americans here in Virginia to not fund the Department of Homeland Security or does it endanger their safety?

It endangers this country when we don't fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. And I will tell you that it endangers us because the whole world knows that this Congress is not funding the Homeland Security Department.

Correct. Let me quote another Virginian, Don Beyer, who says that there's a shocking failure of leadership that needlessly puts American lives in danger to be active in Iran right now. What kind of danger does it put American citizens in right now to fail to fund the Department of Homeland Security?

Every day this country faces threats and the department sees them, stops them. When you hear no bad news, that's a good day for us. That means that we've done our work and we've stopped threats and millions of those happen every single year that our agencies are working on. When we don't have the funding to have every single person on their job and on task, that makes us vulnerable.

And again, the hypocrisy blows my mind when Senator Mark Warner, co-chair of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, says that the president is putting American lives at risk in Iran. What kind of risks is Senator Warner putting Americans in when he fails to vote for a Department of Homeland Security funding bill?

Well, and Iran has said that they will retaliate. And we know how they have threatened us, how they've threatened us on our homeland, and they've threatened our leading officials as well. So those threats are very real and exist and we are on a tempo that is higher than usual.

And let me talk about my own governor, Governor Spanberger. Just a few weeks ago, an alleged MS-13 gang member, Christian Medrano-Umanzor, was arrested in Strasburg thanks to the cooperation of local law enforcement with ICE officers were able to confirm that he was wanted on a detainer. He's now in custody of ICE on a charge of illegal reentry. But late last month, Fairfax County Police Department charged an illegal alien, Abdul Jalloh, with fatally stabbing Stephanie Minter at a local bus stop. Now, he was arrested over 30 times for various crimes including rape, malicious wounding, assault, and larceny. But our governor now says that she demands a judicial warrant before she will have cooperation with ICE on this. That is remarkable to me that she would be putting Virginians' lives at risk and risk releasing this man back into the Fairfax County community. Talk about how a judicial warrant's different from an administrative warrant and what that would do to your ability and the ability of your department to enforce our immigration laws to remove dangerous illegal aliens and to protect the citizens of Virginia.

Yeah, administrative warrants are the legal tool that we have been given by this body to go out and do immigration enforcement. And we've in over 400,000 different instances used those effectively and very rarely used them to ever go into somebody's home. But in that situation in Virginia, the people that live there should be alarmed that they don't have a governor that can make a common sense decision like that. That we would not want someone like that on the streets impacting the safety of the citizens of Virginia. You've had a dramatic downgrade in governors recently. I feel terrible for the people that live there. I'm sure that by the next election they will choose better.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, a unanimous consent request.

The gentleman's recognized.

Enter into the record a tweet from the Department of Homeland Security responding to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler's claims earlier.

Without objection. Gentlelady from North Carolina for unanimous consent.

Yes, I have three, Mr. Chairman. I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record a Climate Power article titled, "Kristi Noem Gutted Disaster Response."

Without objection.

And then a unanimous consent request to enter into the record a Guardian article titled, "A Bar, Kitchen, Flat-Screen TVs: $70 Million DHS is Eyeing for Deportation."

Without objection.

And then the last one, a press release by my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, "DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Spends $200 Million Taxpayer Dollar Money for a Pair of Gulfstream Private Jets."

Without objection. Gentlelady from Vermont is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Noem, I want to start with your testimony in front of Congress last year. You said, quote, "I think it's shameful to see the defense of individuals who break our laws. We are a nation of laws. If we are not a nation of laws, we are no nation at all." Do you stand by that?

I do.

We are a nation of laws. And obviously in a nation of laws, agencies have to comply with lawful court orders. Secretary Noem, since you took over the department, how many times has DHS violated a court order?

We always comply with federal court orders. I believe the instances that you're talking about are times when a judge has issued an order and notification came to us in a period of time that was a large enough gap to not meet the deadline. So we may have missed a deadline. We've never violated a court order. We've always complied.

Secretary Noem, if I could. If I could, Secretary. I have the numbers handy right here because last week a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush identified 210 times. 210 times when your agency violated court orders. And one judge has said about ICE, "ICE has likely violated more court orders in January of 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence." Now Secretary Noem, you have said repeatedly that your department is quote, "following all court orders." But just because you keep saying it does not make it true. And Americans aren't stupid and they can see what is happening and judges are also sounding the alarm. In a case where you attempted to deport Ramesa Ursic because of her First Amendment protected rights, First Amendment protected speech, the judge said that you and Secretary Rubio had engaged in an unconstitutional conspiracy and that you both failed in your duties to protect the Constitution. And frankly those words are absolutely shocking. And the reality is that you refuse to acknowledge, and you're doing it here today, you refuse to acknowledge that your agency has broken the law. Since you have been at the helm of this agency has anyone at DHS lied to a federal judge?

No, we comply with all federal court orders. I'm surprised that it would be shocking to you.

So is your testimony that you have not? Is your testimony that no one at ICE has violated a court order or has lied to a federal judge? Is that your testimony?

To my knowledge, I'm not aware of any situations where that has happened.

Okay. Well so when you look at what the court said in the Ursic case, it said, "The court rejects this testimony from ICE's leadership as disingenuous, as squalid and dishonorable." So we have a federal judge who has rejected testimony from ICE's leadership because it wasn't true. So the head of ICE, Acting Director Todd Lyons, lied in sworn testimony. Has he been fired?

No, Todd Lyons is a good man who has spent decades...

Have there been any, Secretary Noem, have there been any consequences? Has there been any consequences for him lying to a federal judge? That's what I want to know. Are there any consequences for someone under your leadership lying?

It is common knowledge that we have activist judges out there throwing opinions around that are not based on law.

So you have said repeatedly again, I just want to bring us back to my question. You have said that we are a nation of laws. Nobody is above the law. You are not above the law. Todd Lyons is not above the law. No one working for you, nobody working for you is above the law. So I want to say this, Secretary Noem, it is shocking to Americans right now to see that you can sit in front of this committee and continue to cover for people who are working under you. You're in charge now. This is your DHS. The buck stops with you. The fact that you have people working under you that are lying to federal judges and that you're not going to take responsibility for that and hold them accountable to that is shocking. And I think Americans deserve so much better than that. And your employees have regularly, regularly ignored court orders and lied to judges. Now you're covering up and I just want to say this conduct alone, this conduct alone is impeachable. And I want you to know that Americans will get accountability for the damage that you have done, for the lawlessness of aspects of DHS, for killing innocent Americans, for terrorizing children. They will get accountability. And you're the Secretary of DHS for now. And you think you're immune from accountability but I promise you this, one day he is not going to be president anymore. He is not going to be in charge and when that day comes we will still be here and we will still be seeking accountability and in hearings like this we are going to continue to prove your guilt. I yield back.

Gentlelady yields back. Gentleman from South Carolina is recognized.

Madam Secretary, can you feel the righteous indignation going on on the other side right now? It's just kind of remarkable a little bit when you think about it. They talk about accountability and impeachment for you and probably everybody in the admin should they ever gain control again, which is hopefully not. But the funny thing is is you know accountability, why don't they own up to their own failures, right? Like we're sitting here with for four years with a wide open border. The former ranking member, not the current one, but the former one said that we were imagining a border crisis. Do you think that we were ever imagining a border crisis, Madam Secretary?

No, not at all. In fact we lost 4,000 lives because of that invasion of people coming into the country in that mass invasion that we saw going on. And 30 percent of the young girls and women were raped during that invasion as well. They never speak of that.

Yeah. And the amount of people who lost their lives because of that or were victimized. And now we fast forward on accountability, Madam Secretary. We talk about accountability. They're sitting over there not funding your department, right? In an active conflict on an international stage. We have members of the Coast Guard who are being fired on right now by the Iranian and their proxies and they're not even getting paid for that. Is that right?

Well we have one more paycheck ability in Coast Guard to pay them but they are choosing not to fund those individuals that are at war. We are doing extraordinary measures to take care of them and their families but they have chosen to not fulfill their paychecks by not funding this department.

Correct. And all the great people who work at TSA, all these folks, if they have private jets I'm sure a few of them do, but most of us actually fly through regular airports and they go through TSA and those people have a smile on their face, greet them. They probably don't even say anything about funding them because they're just too scared about it. But like these people are working tirelessly and they're not getting paid. But they're still collecting a paycheck I'm sure. They haven't foregone their pay. So they talk about accountability and impeachment all this stuff. I think the buck stops with them. I mean they had the government for at least the first two years of the Biden administration and didn't do shit. And then we come in and they yell at you and they get big mad and scream about you and impeachment but they're not even doing the basic fundamentals of what they're supposed to do. Sorry, that was like a sidebar but my gosh like the righteous indignation and the hypocrisy is just alarming. I look at this Secretary and you know 10 million people under the last administration encounters on the Southwest border. Is that fair to say?

Yes, actually more.

About 10 million. 8 million were entered including 6 million released into the interior. 2 million gotaways. That could be more obviously, right?

Yes.

For 45 consecutive months the Southwest border encounters exceeded 100,000 a month, 160,000 and peaking at 15,000 a day. You remember what Jay Johnson, your many predecessors ago, said how many people it would be a crisis at the border if they were crossing per day? Do you remember that?

I don't remember.

Jay Johnson, Democrat Department of Homeland Security Secretary under Obama, said 1,000. We were at 10,000 a day for the majority of the President Biden's term. Isn't that so? They halted construction of the border wall, right? They terminated the Remain in Mexico policy. They restrict ICE enforcement and expand mass parole programs. They support sanctuary jurisdictions, right?

They do.

When you stop deterrents, when you restrict removals, you do all these things, that kind of creates a pull factor to come to the country illegally, does it not?

It does. And they have sanctuary cities. Illegal aliens that come into this country know where they can go where local officials will protect them.

And under President Trump and your agency that has been reversed. What a difference. What a different day. You just needed a new president, right?

Yeah, absolutely. It's incredible what President Trump has done with partnering with mayors and governors who will work with us to lower murder rates, victimization, how they have made their streets safer and their communities are growing, their economies are doing better. We would hope that every single city would see the benefits to working with President Trump.

Well Madam Secretary, I appreciate you being here, appreciate the work that you do. I'm going to yield the remainder of my time to the Chairman.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Earlier Madam Secretary, you said context is important. I think that is well said. And I understand there are investigations going on and the Democrats have brought up some tragic situations that have taken place particularly in Minnesota. But I do think context is important. Have agents been doxxed? Have ICE agents been doxxed?

Yes.

Have ICE agents been harassed?

Yes.

Have ICE agents been physically attacked?

Yes.

Have ICE agents been screamed at?

Yes.

Have ICE agents been cursed at?

Yes sir.

And not by the gentleman from South Carolina but by people on the street. Have ICE agents been spit on?

Yes sir.

Have ICE agents been stalked? Have they been tracked online?

Yes and they've had an 8,000 percent increase in death threats against them and their families.

I was going to get to that. Have ICE agents' families been threatened? And have ICE agents had their pictures and addresses posted online?

Yes they have.

I think context is important and we want to keep that in mind as we go about with our oversight responsibilities. Gentleman from Illinois is recognized for five. We will try to get two more in and then we got to go to votes. Normally the situation in the House right now they typically wait on us. So we will go with the gentleman from Illinois is recognized.

Thank you Chairman and Secretary Noem, I'm glad that you finally made it here. I know you're busy using our tax dollars to trample on the Constitution to enrich yourself and to cosplay as law enforcement for your camera crew. We've seen it. You've led the campaign of terror by masked armed criminals in my district in Chicagoland and around the country. You celebrate the murder of American citizens with the same enthusiasm that you showed when you killed your own puppy. You symbolize the cruelty, corruption and incompetence of this administration and the Republican go-alongs. Your thugs at DHS brutalize the American people and you lie and smear victims to cover up these crimes. Let's talk about two examples in my district. On September 12, an ICE agent murdered Silverio Villegas Gonzalez who had just dropped off his kids at school as he tried to leave a traffic stop. ICE said the officer sustained quote, "severe injuries." Sitting there here under oath, do you stand by the claim that the officer was severely injured, yes or no?

I don't know the case you're speaking to specifically.

The whole country knows and you don't know. Let's play the clip of the agent talking about his injuries.

[Video plays.]

What you just heard was the agent himself describing his injuries as quote-unquote nothing major, which means your agency lied to cover up the unjustified murder of Silverio by an ICE agent. Let's talk about Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum. You were asked about Marimar at yesterday's Senate hearing and you should be familiar with the case by now. DHS has repeatedly said that Marimar was a quote-unquote domestic terrorist who quote-unquote rammed federal agents with her vehicle. Sitting here under oath, do you stand by these claims, yes or no?

Congressman, we've seen a 3,000 percent increase in people weaponizing their vehicles. Congressman, we've seen a 3,000% increase in

Do you stand by the claims? You've had an opportunity to look into the case. Yes or no?

We have a changing situation on the ground all the time with...

Yes or no? You're familiar with the case. It was brought up yesterday.

I'm familiar with the case.

Let's play the clip and see what we see as evidence.

[Video plays.]

The five shots that you heard against a U.S. citizen. So the agent said they were going to make contact, rammed their vehicle into Marimar's, immediately lied about it, and then shot her in cold blood. And then DOJ dismissed all charges against her. I wonder why. So once again, DHS lied to cover up its crimes. And this morning, you took back to social media, DHS continued to double down on her and lied again. Let me be clear. You are a disgrace to this nation and you should resign or face impeachment. And every crime, including the murder of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez and of Marimar, must be fully investigated and prosecuted. But while you are, to borrow a phrase, the worst of the worst of DHS secretaries, the agency has been rogue and lawless since its inception in 2002. It was set up to expand surveillance and undermine civil rights by falsely labeling immigrants and protesters as terrorists, as we just saw. That's exactly what it's doing and exactly why DHS must be dismantled and the immigration system must be rebuilt from the bottom up. That's why Americans all over believe that this agency has gone too far. Mr. Chairman, before I yield back, I request unanimous consent to submit for the record this Fox interview article dated February 5, 2026, entitled More Than Half of Voters Think That DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Should Be Removed. And with that I yield back.

Without objection. Madam Secretary, we have one more then we'll have to take a break for votes then we'll come back for a few more members to ask their questions. Gentleman from North Carolina is recognized.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Madam Secretary, for your presence here today. I must say, as a freshman congressman and sitting through the hearings such as this, I'm absolutely appalled at the lack of respect and decorum that is shown for a member of in your position as the Secretary. And I apologize for that. And let me say also on behalf of North Carolina, thank you. Thank you for serving. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your commitment and your passion to your job and what you are doing. And over the past year, you and I know that liberal activists have taken to the streets to protest ICE and Border Patrol, often impeding law enforcement in the process. And among these protests, I'm curious whether you've ever seen the left express anger at the individuals that I have pictured here or for the people I have pictured here in my hand. This is Fletcher and Skylar, you may recognize. This is a couple from my state of North Carolina. They were killed in a head-on crash and the suspect is an illegal alien with a prior DUI. Secretary Noem, are you aware of any protest or of outrage over the deaths of Fletcher and Skylar?

No, I'm not.

This is Nate. He's a 21-year-old student at the University of South Carolina. He was killed by an illegal alien in a hit-and-run. Secretary Noem, are you aware of any protests to really to lock up his killer?

No, I'm not.

This is Ruby. She's 25 years old. She was killed by an illegal alien who shot her in the head and dumped her body on a Michigan highway. Secretary Noem, have you heard of any calls for her killer to be punished and deported?

I'm not. No.

And this is Ivory. Ivory is seven years old. She was killed by a drunk driver who is in our country illegally. Secretary Noem, are you aware of any protest to lock up her killer?

No.

The answer of course is no. And as I've watched the pictures of the angel families here, how my heart has broken in just witnessing and watching and seeing the pain and hurt that you have felt. And thank you for your time and your efforts in being here today. There's dozens more Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of illegal aliens who should never have been in our country. But the media and the Democrats seem to want us to forget them. And the bottom line is clear. Democrats have it backwards. Rather than demand justice for these Americans, they defund law enforcement officials tasked with ensuring their killers are sent out of our country. Right there in Charlotte, North Carolina. Let's take a moment and look at some of the people that the Democrats have shut down the Department of Homeland Security so these could stay in our country. These on this board right behind me are just examples from Charlotte, which I represent a small part of. Humberto Pozada-Rodriguez, a known MS-13 gang member from Honduras, convicted of trespassing, public disorderly conduct, giving false information to a police officer, and three counts of illegal entry. Hector Maldonado-Garay, a previously removed criminal alien from Honduras, convicted of three counts of simple assault, one count of aggravated assault, and shoplifting. And Jordan Renato Castillo-Chavez, a criminal alien from Costa Rica, arrested for indecent liberties with a child, first-degree exploitation of a minor, attempted statutory sexual offense with a child less than 15 years old, and solicitation of a child by a computer. Secretary Noem, these are just three examples of dangerous individuals arrested by DHS during Operation Charlotte's Web just this past November. And do you think average Americans want MS-13 gang members on their streets?

No, they don't. And we were proud to do that operation. 1,379 individuals were arrested and detained and removed out of that community and it's much safer today.

And every day, we see Democrats and left-wing activists spend more time advocating for these criminal aliens than for American victims, which was exactly the President's point in his State of the Union address that drew the picture for the entire country. I have so much more I could talk about but my time is up. Again, Madam Secretary, thank you for your service. Thank you for your commitment. And on behalf of North Carolina, I thank you. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Gentleman yields back to to our angel families. We're going to take a break now. If you have to leave, I understand, but we really appreciate you being here and we God bless you for what you've had to endure as a family. Secretary, we will take a break 30 minutes more or less and we'll be back as as soon as we can. With that the committee stands in recess. Committee will come to order. The gentlelady from California is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Secretary, for joining us finally. You are in charge of protecting the homeland. And so your judgment and the judgment of your senior staff can be the difference between life and death. So I think that judgment would need to be unassailable. Why then is the question have you made Corey Lewandowski your de facto chief of staff who possesses an unchecked level of power at DHS? Under your leadership, this person has done things like fire your FEMA administrator while sitting behind your desk, which is your job to do. Lobby to build the controversial detention facility known as Alligator Alcatraz, which has turned into a legal boondoggle costing Florida millions. And have veto and reviewing and signing power over large DHS contracts and grants, which again is your job. DHS has critical agency components like the Secret Service, FEMA, Border Patrol, cybersecurity. So does Corey Lewandowski have national security experience, military experience, law enforcement experience? No. He is a lobbyist, a failed campaign manager, which is causing my constituents who are waiting for their FEMA dollars and me to wonder what are are his qualifications for this job. So according to the Wall Street Journal, you and Mr. L have a close relationship that has made President Trump, quote, uncomfortable. The president reportedly denounced Corey Lewandowski as your chief of staff due to reports of a romantic relationship between the two of you. So instead you designated him as a special government employee, a position he has held well beyond the allowed 130 days and requires him to disclose if he is making money off of his position. Trump knows that this guy is shady. Corey has a decades-long record of physical battery, sexual harassment, illegal lobbying for a Venezuelan oil company, and bringing a loaded gun into a federal building. Despite being fired or removed from virtually every position he has ever held due to misconduct, he now wields unchecked, unconfirmed, undisclosed power over your department. This person has no experience running anything close to Department of Homeland Security or even advising someone in your position. He is unqualified, which again has left my constituents and I wondering why he is your top official. So Secretary Noem, at any time during your tenure as Director of Department of Homeland Security, have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski?

Mr. Chairman, I am shocked that we're going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today.

Reclaiming my...

And ma'am, one thing that I would tell you is that he is a special government employee who works for the White House.

So reclaiming my time, Secretary, it is okay for you to be offended by the question. It is okay for you to be offended by the question. But it is also a real question. So what I would say... And you should be able to answer the question. Clearly every single day, every single day, if someone is asking if you or any federal official is sleeping with their subordinate, that should be the easiest question. You should be wanting to answer that question because it is not about your sex life. It is about your judgment. It is about your...

There are thousands of them in the federal government and is an advisor and has no no authority to be making any decision. Has no authority to be making decisions and putting people in positions. And what we do at the Department of Homeland Security every single day is to protect this country and to make decisions. It's garbage and it's offensive that you have brought that kind of garbage as my reputation for you and you need to recognize...

Time belongs... Time belongs to the gentlelady from California, but it would be nice if you would let her respond.

I will. I want to let you know, it is about your judgment and decision-making. It is about the 260,000 employees that work under you that want to make sure that you are giving information and making decisions clearly. It is about conflict of interest. It is about a national security risk. Department of Homeland Security was created right after 9/11 to protect the homeland. And DHS has circulated an internal bulletin to law enforcement partners warning that the conflict of the war we're in could inspire lone actors or small-scale cyber activity inside the United States, according to a memo obtained by ABC News. So American lives are at risk. The people who work for you are at risk. And they want to know that the person at the top, you, are making decisions clearly without any sort of cloudiness and that they're your decisions because you're the secretary who was confirmed. That's what this is about. Saving the lives of Americans and not costing them millions of dollars and not having a secretary who's compromised in her decision-making. And Mr. Chair, before I yield my time, I would like to enter into the record some articles and I'm asking for unanimous consent. Noem tightens her grip on DHS, Lewandowski fired FEMA admin.

Without objection.

Okay. The next one is Kristi Noem secretly took a cut of political donations from ProPublica.

Without objection.

Kristi Noem fires pilot over a blanket but is forced to reinstate him to fly home, Wall Street Journal.

Without objection.

Lewandowski taking out trash at Noem's DC home, Daily Beast.

Without objection.

Spy Barbie's mile-high privacy chamber with alleged lover exposed. Wall Street Journal, how Corey Lewandowski became Kristi Noem's gatekeeper at DHS.

Without objection.

A pilot fired over Kristi Noem's missing blanket and the constant chaos inside DHS, Wall Street Journal.

Without objection.

Police charge Trump campaign manager with assault, PBS News.

Without objection.

Woman who accused Corey Lewandowski of assault speaks out, I don't want this to happen to anyone else, CBS News.

Without objection.

Lewandowski's firm quietly inked deal with Venezuela-owned company, Politico. this firm quietly inked deal with Venezuela owned company Politico.

Without objection.

List of U.S. cities raising security amid Iran conflict, Newsweek.

Without objection.

Kristi Noem, I have a few more, I'm sorry. Kristi Noem misled Congress yesterday about top aide's role in DHS contract.

Without objection.

Policy number 10271 from ICE, it is an anti-fraternization policy prohibiting romantic or sexual relationships between supervisors and their subordinates. And with that I yield.

Without objection, gentleman from Texas is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, your predecessor came before this committee several times over the last four years I was here, I believe for all of those. One of the things he claimed in an interview with the Washington Post in January of 2023, and we're talking about Mr. Mayorkas, he said that the overwhelming number of inadmissible aliens flooding our border under the Biden administration did not affect the CBP's ability to intercept dangerous drugs. He also just before he claimed, excuse me, on February of 2023, just before the Biden-Harris administration repealed Title 42, that people who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain are promptly processed and removed. He lied about aliens on final orders of removal not getting due process. And along the same lines he claimed before this committee that anyone who presents a national security or public safety threat is detained and put on a priority list for removal. I believe he also lied about the border being secure and him doing everything to enhance border security. And I also believe he lied on national TV about denying enhanced security requests to Trump's security detail, which we learned later that he in fact did deny. Am I mistaken here or were we misled by your predecessor in this committee over the four years they were in control?

Yes, you were misled as to the seriousness of the situation of that open border and the evasion that was being facilitated. Yes, you were misled as to the seriousness of the situation of that open border and the evasion that was being facilitated flooding our country with millions and millions of people that were illegal and many of them that were public safety threats that we're now working hard to remove every day.

Well, I appreciate the work you're doing. Tell me with respect to the shutdown of your department, is this going to make it harder for you all to, for DHS to prepare for the FIFA World Cup?

Yes sir, it is making it more difficult. Our work is to make sure that we can get assistance, training, resources out to local cities. There's 11 cities here in the country that will be hosting matches. Those matches will be held over 39 days. There'll be a lot of work need to be done during those days to keep our country safe and secure and we need to make sure that we're fulfilling all the orders and contracts for the equipment that we'll need and get people trained and ready to go to make sure people can come by the millions to these matches and enjoy the camaraderie and the friendship and the sportsmanlike activities and that happen around those events.

What about along that same line the negative effect that this shutdown's having on the TSA retention rate? I worry about them, I see them at the airport and I know they're worried, I know you're worried for them. How is this affecting them?

Well, this is the third time in five months that TSOs, our transportation security officers, have been asked to work without pay. Have been asked to show up and do their jobs to protect our country without a paycheck to take care of their families. So they're patriots, they work to protect our country, but they have to take care of their families too. So some are sleeping in their cars, some are covering shifts for other people so they can work a second job to pay their bills, some are babysitting others' kids. They're trying to get through it, but this has been extremely challenging and some are being demoralized to the point where they are considering another job whose paychecks are certain.

Well, I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will help us to fix this quickly and I'll yield the balance of my time to Mr. Jordan.

I appreciate the gentleman yielding back and I'm going to yield back. It's been a long day, Secretary, we appreciate you being here. Next, the gentleman from Florida is recognized for five minutes.

Before I go, I just have a bunch of UC requests, Mr. Chairman.

Gentleman may proceed. Is it going to be as long as the previous one?

You seem a little exhausted.

No, not at all. I just think we're setting records like Mr. Biggs and now the gentleman from California, you're going to go for the record?

If I'm being honest, I threw out 50 of them.

God bless you, so let's get started.

All right. A Vox article, the mess that Kristi Noem made.

Without objection.

Times article, Noem's spending rule causes delays at Homeland Security Department.

Without objection.

Politico, vote to overhaul FEMA cancelled after leaked report.

Without objection.

ProPublica, Kristi Noem misled Congress about top aide's role at DHS.

Without objection.

The Hill, Trump approval rating on immigration at record low.

Without objection.

Wall Street Journal, pilot fired over Kristi Noem's missing blanket.

Without objection.

CNN article, sources describe how Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's Gucci bag was stolen under her chair.

Without objection.

New York Times, late night is distracted by Kristi Noem's oversized hats, that one's my favorite.

Without objection.

And a Times article, some Republicans join calls for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to step down.

Without objection.

All right, thank you Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your indulgence. Before I begin, first let me say to the families that are still here, I am very sorry for your loss. I watched parents in my hometown of Parkland bury their kids after the shooting at my high school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and I can't tell you that it was an out-of-body experience and there's nothing like burying a child. So I am deeply sorry for your loss. Madam Secretary, welcome. Good afternoon. Thomas Massie mentioned Ron DeSantis' response during COVID. Well you're looking at the guy who ran that response, I was the director of emergency management for the state of Florida. For a Republican governor, I worked with the Trump FEMA administration during the category five Hurricane Michael recovery. That Trump's FEMA was great. We got expedited reimbursement, a program that you got rid of or threatened to get rid of. And the panhandle had one of the greatest responses after that category five storm. President said he wanted to reform FEMA, but that's not what you did, you've basically destroyed the agency. Largest FEMA backlog in the history of FEMA. My state of Florida is owed $2.5 billion. You have delayed the FEMA disaster declarations even when the applicants meet FEMA statutory threshold under the Stafford Act. You want states to do more, yet you want to cut the EMPG program which grants them funding to build capacity. Your office was involved in discussions of moving FEMA to Texas. You created a rule of anything over $100,000 has to come to your desk, a rule that has slowed down FEMA reimbursement, FEMA response, we have empty regional offices. You have done the opposite of what President Trump wanted to accomplish, which was to speed up the process, your policies have made the department slower. I didn't think it was possible to make FEMA more bureaucratic, but boy you have exceeded all my expectations. In the Texas floods, you didn't put the urban search and rescue crews on the road for 72 hours, days later the FEMA urban search and rescue chief resigned in protest. You hired two people as the administrator with no FEMA experience. We're on our third FEMA administrator in 14 months, never in the history of the department has that ever happened. The President took presidential action to create the FEMA Council, I supported it. You opposed the FEMA Council, you delayed its beginning. The report has still not come out. The White House cancelled your last council meeting and has held up the release of the report. But surprise, I have it. I have it. I want to thank the former FEMA employees that you fired who gave this to me. This report's never been seen in public before, okay, but this is it. This was the report, it was 122 pages, the original draft report. You and Corey Lewandowski then took the report and made it 23 pages. You cut out all the stuff that was put in by governors who had been through disasters, emergency management directors, FEMA experts, national security experts, you cut it all out. It's all gone. That's why the report's not been released. Sitting in the White House trying to figure out this mess that you created. So instead of getting the recommendations we need, now we have nothing. You've called Corey Lewandowski a special government employee. I understand what government means, I understand what employee means, okay, but I don't know what makes him special. Now I want to give you an opportunity to answer on the record to Ms. Kamlager-Dove's question. I know you said it's garbage and it may be, but I really think you need to say the word no into the record so that you can clear that up.

I think the ridiculousness of this and the tabloids that you are quoting and referencing are insane and this has been...

So that's a no?

...something that I've refuted for years and I continue to do that.

Is that a no? So it's a no. We can move on. Hold on, Madam Secretary, we can move on, I'm not going to belabor it. If it's a...

This is, this is what you do.

Hold on, I'm not doing anything.

The socialist liberal left, okay, is you go off and you attack conservative women and you say that we're either stupid or we're sluts.

I haven't said anything. All right, so listen. Yesterday, reclaiming my time Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman reclaiming my time. You were asked by Richard Blumenthal yesterday, you were asked by Richard Blumenthal yesterday if Corey was involved in approving contracts. You said no. Do you want to correct that?

What I would say is that he as an advisor to the Department of Homeland Security has no decision making authority.

Madam Secretary, you want to correct it yes or no? You don't want to correct it, fine.

No decision making authority, no role in...

Hold on, not a problem. According to one of the FEMA administrators that you fired, there is nothing including contracts that is brought to you that he hasn't reviewed, in fact a significant amount of DHS internal routing documents has his signature on it above deputy secretaries. Okay. That former FEMA administrator wasn't fired by you, the Secretary, he was fired by Corey. It was Corey that called him into your office, it was Corey that made him to submit to a polygraph test. The $100,000 spending rule that you created that comes to your desk, you're not even sitting at your desk, it's Corey who's sitting there. ICE has said the Republicans should be happy at the job that you're doing. Really? You're looking at the person who single-handedly took the President's signature core issue immigration, the issue that got him elected, from 59 percent to 39 percent. 200 miles of border walls being held up by you, they had to bring in Tom Homan, pull out of Minnesota. I think the country needs a national divorce from you on biblical grounds. I mean if Donald Trump was still Apprentice Trump, he would look at you and he would realize you're the weakest cabinet member and he would fire you. And if the President said to you that only way DHS could reopen is if you resigned, I hope you would take him up on it. Now I want to end on a happy note, Mr. Chairman, real quickly. You know, the President gave all sorts of stuff out during the State of the Union. God I don't want you leave, I got you a new Coast Guard blankie, the one you lost. Okay, so this is for you, you don't leave empty handed when you come to Judiciary. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Time of the gentleman has expired, the gentleman from Missouri is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Secretary, thank you so much for being here. I apologize for the way you've been treated, to paraphrase someone, ad hominem attacks are the last refuge of the scoundrel. And I think the tabloid attacks you've been subjected to are ridiculous. This idea that you're quote the worst of DHS secretaries, oh really, really. Eight to 10 million illegal aliens entered this country under Joe Biden and your predecessor. You've arrested 700,000 illegal aliens, 2.2 million have left involuntarily, 56 percent decline in fentanyl traffic, 21 percent decline in fentanyl deaths. You know my Democrat colleagues claim that they have all this sympathy for the angel families, but they're not doing a darn thing to make sure there are fewer angel families going forward, you are. So thank you for your services and thank you for being here today. You know it's painfully clear that a series of failures of Biden's Department of Homeland Security left the country exposed, exposed to terrorism. In 2023, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi illegally walked across the southern border where he was screened by border agents and then released into the USA, would your border agents have let him in?

No.

I don't think so. A little over a year later, in October 2024, he opened fire on a Jewish man at a synagogue in Chicago when the first responders arrived, he popped out of a nearby alleyway shouting Allahu Akbar and fired at the officers. Carried out by someone who should have never been in the country in the first place and I don't think your CBP would have let him into the country. The same month federal agents arrested two Afghan nationals, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi and Abdullah Haji Zada, who were plotting an ISIS-inspired mass casualty event on election day. Tawhedi admitted that he conspired to acquire AK-47s, 500 rounds of ammunition, 10 magazines to carry out a mass casualty attack. He entered the US in 2021 on a special immigrant visa, once again a failure of vetting, I don't believe your DHS would have let him in. Last June, Mohamed Sabri Soliman attacked peacefully protesting pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado who were marching for the release of hostages held by Hamas, shouting free Palestine, he hurled Molotov cocktails into the crowd, hospitalizing at least eight people. Guess what, he entered the US on a tourist visa in 2022, overstayed and filed an asylum claim within a month and was granted work authorization by the Biden administration. He had posted Muslim Brotherhood propaganda online for years and still he received a visa. No vetting. I don't think your DHS would have let him in the country. Each of these incidents happened during a period when the number of terrorists encountered at the southern border skyrocketed, in 2023 alone the border patrol encountered 169 aliens at the southern border on the terrorist watch list. Secretary Noem, I want to thank you for working overtime to fully screen visa applicants, check social media histories, enforce visa overstays and not to release unknown illegal aliens into the country. Meanwhile though, my Democrat colleagues have defunded DHS. They demonize the brave men and women of ICE, of customs and border patrol, of other agencies. They defund, can I ask you how does this defunding of your department make our country less safe?

Well, the men and women at the department continue to get up and to do their jobs if they aren't furloughed by the lack of funding. So that's about 100,000 of them that are prevented from coming to work because of that. Those 100,000 people have duties and responsibilities that secure our homeland through different agencies and departments. For instance, the CWMD, it's Weapons of Mass Destruction. We're the ones that go out and train all the individuals to detect any kinds of bombs, terrorist activities, devices.

Those would be good people to have working right now. Those would be good people to have working right now.

It would be great to have them and help them assisting state and local individuals out there and governments as far as preparing for any kind of attack we may face. CISA is our cybersecurity agency. The majority of their employees are furloughed and not at work now. They help defend us from cyberattacks and threats to our homeland and critical infrastructure.

Good thing to have them working now too.

We've got, you know, because we are a national security agency, many of these employees are required to show up and work and many of them are, but they're not necessarily getting a paycheck. And that's what I think is remarkable is that they continue to do their work to defend the homeland even though they're struggling at home and going farther into debt from not getting a salary.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back.

Mr. Chair, I have five unanimous consent, I know, about how ICE is obstructing state and local criminal prosecutions. A May 8, 2025 article entitled, He Faced a Possible Prison Term for Assault, Instead He Was Deported. Without objection. A December 26 article entitled, As ICE Rams Up Deportations, Texas Prosecutors Say They're Losing Key Witnesses in Criminal Cases. Without objection. A July 12 article entitled, ICE Deportations Are Derailing Colorado Criminal Prosecution. Without objection. A January 26 article entitled, Prosecutors Stunned as ICE Let Suspect in $100 Million Jewelry Heist Leave U.S. Without objection. And a February 13 article entitled, Father Who Found His 11-Year-Old Murdered in Texas Nearly Deported by ICE Before He Could Testify. Without objection. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentleman from New York is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Noem, about three weeks ago, you started a press conference and said, and I quote here, when it gets to election day, we've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country. We all know what you mean and meant by the right people voting to elect the right leaders, but I want to narrow in on a different part of it. What proactive measures have you taken to make sure that the right people vote for the right leaders?

The job of the Department of Homeland Security is to secure our critical infrastructure. And elections are deemed by statute in law as critical infrastructure.

I understand that. That's been long before. What proactive measures have you taken?

So what that means is that we go forward and identify vulnerabilities that may exist in that system. And then how that applies to elections is talking with states who run elections, identify and help them see how they can possibly be compromised. And then we offer mitigation.

Right. I understand. Yes, CISA is supposed to do that. But let's discuss, if we don't mind, just to reclaim my time because I want to move forward, some of the other possibilities that have been floating for how you will take or might take proactive measures to, quote unquote, make sure that the right people vote and elect the right leaders. Yesterday in the Senate hearing, you were asked a couple times about whether you would or would not station immigration agents at polling sites. A couple of times, you said you had no plans to do so. Is that still your testimony?

That is. I have no plans.

Okay. So we all know that no plans today can turn into full plans tomorrow. So it doesn't answer the question. And you're still, am I right, unwilling to say that you will not send DHS agents to polling places. Is that correct?

I'm not certain why you and the Democrat Party are so concerned that that would actually happen. That must mean that you're indicating people would be showing up at the polls to vote illegally or that you would want illegal aliens to show up.

Oh, that's interesting. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about that because this is a big voter fraud theory, right? Are you aware of the Heritage Foundation, right?

I'm wondering what you're concerned about. Because I have not recommended...

Are you aware of the Heritage Foundation?

Yes, I am, but I have not recommended...

Okay. So the Heritage Foundation, correct me if I'm wrong, is a right-wing think tank, created, drafted Project 2025, and it's been on a crusade to convince the American people that voter fraud by undocumented immigrants is a big deal. You know what the problem is? Is that you never talk about any actual evidence. And in fact, the Heritage Foundation's own information, its own data says that in the 30 years, 32 years from 1992 to 2024, out of two billion votes cast, 10 undocumented immigrants were found to have committed voter fraud. 10 out of two billion. Does that sound like a significant problem to you that your answer about why you might put immigration agents is because there's voter fraud?

I never once said that I would put individuals there. And I would think that if you have one person voting improperly in an election...

So you don't think that voter fraud is a problem? So is it your testimony you don't think that voter fraud is a problem now?

I didn't say that. I said I have no plans.

Do you have any evidence ever, any data, anything?

There are illegal immigrants that have voted in elections. We know that that has happened.

Yeah, they're 10. They're 10. Do you have evidence more of that than the last 30 years?

Are you arguing that they should be able to vote? Is that your argument today?

No. No, Madam Secretary. I'm arguing that it doesn't ever materially impact an election and yet you like to with your snarky attitude throw back that we want undocumented immigrants to vote, which is absolute bogus. In reality, you want to create an excuse to terrorize our polling places. Not only that, are you familiar with this proposed executive order, 17 pages that's been circulating?

I am not. What is it on?

It is a proposed executive order on establishing the security, integrity, and transparency of elections. And in it, it would propose that the president declare a national emergency, use executive authority to seize voting machines, and ban mail-in ballots. You've not seen this at all?

I have not read that and I've not had those conversations with anyone at the White House.

You've not had any conversations with anyone at the White House. That's good to know. If you were asked to do any of those things, do you believe you have the constitutional authority to do that?

We are looking at the vulnerabilities to elections, making recommendations to states...

That's not my question. Do you think you have the constitutional authority to seize voting machines, to seize voter rolls, to prohibit mail-in ballots? Do you believe you have that constitutional authority?

I've not done an analysis on that, so I would not be able to speak.

You're the Secretary of the department that is in charge of maintaining election security. You don't know what your authority is or is not?

My authority is to identify vulnerabilities and to recommend mitigation.

Well, it would be helpful in executing that authority if you knew what your authority was. Time of the gentleman has expired. I yield back.

I know what my authority is.

I do think the Secretary knows the right people voting are citizens. Something that we passed the bill to make sure that happens. And I assume that's what she was referencing when she made that statement.

You should look at the Heritage Foundation study too, Mr. Chairman.

No, I'll be happy to look at it. I just think citizens should vote. You guys think that that shouldn't be a requirement.

So do we. So do we. It's just not an issue. It's not a problem and yet you keep talking about it.

Gentleman's time is expired. I now want to recognize the former Attorney General, the great member from Kansas for his five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, thank you for your time today. I think you have been very responsive to the questions put to you. Folks may or may not have agreed with the responses, but I think you've been responsive and I commend you on that. I have a handful of questions, they're a little bit eclectic, so forgive me if we're all over the map. I don't think we've talked at all about the FIFA World Cup preparations yet today. I recall last summer we appropriated it was $625 million specifically for use by the, I believe it's 11 cities that are going to be hosting World Cup sites. And that was intended for security preparations. I recall very well when we appropriated it because it was in the bill that all the Republicans voted for and all the Democrats voted against, but then all the Democrats put out news releases claiming credit for the money that we'd just appropriated. At least in Kansas City where I represent, that money has not flowed yet, at least that's what I'm told by the local communities. We are now less than 100 days out. Our law enforcement agencies really very much would like to be in a position to know what their money's going to look like so they can make the preparations. There are mutual aid issues to be done, there are personnel decisions to be made. And for us in Kansas City, perhaps uniquely, there are additional challenges because we have the state line down the middle of the road, so the pre-coordination is really quite critical. Their impression is that the final sign-off wherever that needs to come from has not happened yet. What can you tell us about the status of those funds and what can I tell them about what to expect?

Yeah. No, we want those dollars to get out as soon as possible. Of course, all of this is challenged by the fact that the department's not funded and isn't, doesn't have all of our employees working right now. But those dollars, there was specifically $625 million that was to be grants to the 11 cities and local jurisdictions that would be hosting the 78 matches that will happen in the United States. So those dollars will be there soon and are in the process and I'm hopeful that you can deploy. We have the same issue at the department. We're working on purchasing drones to deploy across the country over these stadiums and fan fests that will be hosted so that we can complement what the local cities are doing. And that has been hindered as well. My hope is that we have the opportunity to get a funding bill passed and so the department can get a lot of these things accomplished.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. And I just I want to underscore and I think you agree with me on this how important it is that money flows quickly. And I want to assure you my office and our team, we are happy to work fully with yours to talk with whoever we need to talk with in order to to get that money moving. I thank you for that. Let me jump back onto the immigration side. There's been a lot of discussion on it today and I mean I'm thinking about the Minneapolis situation. I mean it's possible that multiple things are true at the same time. It is true that we're in this mess because the prior administration let 8, 10 million people into this country who should not have been here and wouldn't enforce the law against them. It is true that we're in this mess in some communities like Minneapolis because local authorities won't cooperate and agree and help now that we have an administration that'll enforce the law. It is possible that there have been some individual actions in Minneapolis that we all looked at and said that should not have happened that way. I'm not asking you to comment necessarily, but I presume that the president saw it that way, he made some changes in Minneapolis, which I commend. I think those changes were were prudent. Here is I'm going to offer this as a comment and and invite your response to it. Not in Minneapolis in particular, but more generally. You know there's a lot of angst, there's a lot of concern about some of these operations in some of the communities. Even in Kansas, we've had some targeted enforcement operations mostly by ICE or CBP. And you get all the folks in the local community ginned up, riled up, worried, rumors run rampant. I mean I'll give you a real example in a community in our state recently there were some ICE arrests and it went all over town in the ICE watchers group and there was an arrest at a church and they'd gone into a school. And about five days later, ICE, I think out of Kansas City, the regional guys put out a statement said here's what happened. We came in, we were targeting three specific individuals, two had DUI convictions and final orders of deportation, one had a felony conviction for illegal reentry and a final order of removal. We found them, we executed a car stop, it was a car stop at a location we couldn't just stop in the middle of the road, so they pulled into a parking lot that happened to be a church parking lot, had nothing to do with the fact it was a church. That's where the arrest was executed. And by the way, we were never close, ICE said, to the school that everybody was worried about. I say all of that to illustrate this, I really think it would be helpful if as a routine matter, ICE and CBP when they do these targeted operations, they would do what so many local law enforcement agencies do, when it's concluded, put out a statement, tell the local community here is what we did, who we did it against and why we did it. And it would it would make it so much cleaner to avoid a lot of the worry and speculation. I just wonder where you are on this.

No, I think I think that's a great idea. We have put out dozens, sometimes in one day, what operations were after they were concluded and information so people could have all of the details. Doing that at the field office level, I will have that conversation with ICE and see if we could do that because I don't believe they're doing that today, but informing people would be helpful when they know that they've done an operation against a targeted criminal in that area that that people might have questions. I appreciate that and we will take that back.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. I would encourage... Thank you, Madam Secretary. I would encourage it because I really think it would go a long ways in calming a lot of the unnecessary concern.

You bet.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent request.

The gentleman from New York is recognized.

I just what would like to introduce the proposed executive a 17 page executive order that is circulating in the White House.

Without objection. The gentleman from Maryland's recognized, ranking member.

Yeah. This is from Reuters November 27, 2025, UC request, officials criticize Biden vetting, but Afghan shooting suspect was granted asylum under Trump. And then September 29, 2025, Courthouse News, state sued DHS again over cuts to anti-terrorism grants for blue states.

Without objection. The gentlelady from Texas is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you so much. And Madam Secretary, you are almost to the end, so congratulations. I just have a couple of questions. Are you aware that the law that was written by this Congress makes it clear that members of Congress are allowed to, entitled to, enter any detention facility...

Representative Crockett, I apologize. I have to run to vote in another committee. Secretary and Mr. Schmidt will chair and you will get extra 15 seconds, but I apologize for that. Thank you so much for your testimony.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. Are you aware that the law makes it clear that members of Congress are allowed to enter any detention facility at any point in time in which they choose to?

Yes, I'm aware of the visitation and oversight responsibility and we work every day to try to accommodate members of Congress while taking into account the safety of those individuals that are being detained there.

Let me be clear, at any time, correct?

Yes, I understand there's litigation in this area too and so...

No, no, no, that's not my question. I'm not asking you about litigation. I'm asking you what the law is because let me put it to you this way. There's an appropriations rider that talks about oversight.

Correct.

Correct, and appropriations are law because you are asking us to appropriate dollars right now for DHS, correct?

Correct.

And if we do that, you would take that as law, correct?

Correct.

Okay. So that is what the law states, yet somehow myself and another colleague, Congressman Castro, we ended up giving a seven day notice to the Dilley detention facility because I had actually already gone to El Paso before. And when I went to that facility and I asked them why it was that they were requiring me to do something that specifically my branch of government had dictated was not required, they said it was because of you. They said you were the one that said that they were not allowed to allow us entry unless we gave a seven days heads up. Is that true?

The law specifically states oversight and visitations and we are working to facilitate those and were at that time working to facilitate...

My question is, were you did you give the instruction that members must give a seven days heads up or not?

We had a policy in place that that allowed us to get the staff necessary to facilitate...

Did you were you the one that ordered that policy?

I am responsible for I have a responsibility for ensuring everybody in that facility is going to be safe and that I have adequate staff to conduct a tour at the same time.

Okay. No, but that's not my question because the problem that let me tell you why we need to reclaiming my time. The reason that I'm talking to you about this policy and you're talking to me about safety is because I did go into the Dilley detention facility. And let me tell you, they're not safe. This is why we need to conduct oversight because your people continue in fact, you have lost more lives in detention than anybody else. That is your record right now. So I don't expect that y'all are going to be the ones that are going to be best to keep them safe. This is why we are supposed to conduct oversight and not wait for you to give permission. In fact, after I left the Dilley facility, we were informed of a measles outbreak that was taking place in that facility. And another question I have, are you the one that ordered it to be reopened because that facility was closed under Joe Biden?

Those facilities were opened with the new administration. I'd have to look to see...

Okay, you're part of the new administration. Were you the one that ordered it to be opened is my question.

I would have to see when it was opened because I wasn't sworn in until five days after the incident that you're...

Okay, well this was it was reopened in March. It was it was reopened in March of last year.

Well then I'm sure that that contract would have been renewed while I was secretary.

Speaking of contracts, as I have actually, you know what, let me continue on this line of y'all breaking the law. Are you familiar with a child by the name of Liam Ramos?

I am.

All right. So Liam was at this Dilley facility. And it just so happened that we had put in our seven days notice and y'all had grabbed him six days prior to our visit. So we were able to go and visit Liam. Are you aware of the court order that came down that released Liam from custody?

I am.

And are you aware that the judge said the case has its genesis in an ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children. This court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported, but do so by proper legal procedures. Are you aware of that?

Yes, and I would disagree with the judge on several points.

I'm sure you would, but can you tell me whether or not you have a law degree?

That father chose to take that child into the...

Can you tell me whether or not you have a law degree?

If I have what?

A law degree.

No, I do not have a law degree.

Okay. And and you do understand, because I can go through a bunch of court cases and orders that I disagree with from the Supreme Court, that ultimately that is the order of the court. That is what you follow and if you have an issue, you appeal it up, correct?

That is correct.

Okay. The court went on to say, apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three year old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over his nascent nation. Among others were, he has sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people. He has excited domestic insurrection among us. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. He has kept us among in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. Are you aware that he wrote that? Do you know that he was writing about ICE that falls under you?

The judge?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. With that I will yield, but I do have two UCs. The first UC is ICE training was slashed, records show corroborating whistleblower claims from the Washington Post on yesterday.

Without objection.

The second is FEMA's response to Texas flood slowed by Noem's cost controls. This is out of CNN from July 10 of 2025.

Without objection. Thank you so much. I would ask unanimous consent to put in the record a document from dhs.gov titled Illegal Alien with more than 30 prior arrests fatally stabs woman at Virginia bus stop, ICE requests Virginia authorities not release this public safety threat. Without objection. And also I'd ask unanimous consent to place in the record document titled Man illegally in the US with criminal history now charged in Reston homicide. Without objection. Seeing no other members seeking recognition, Madam Secretary, I want to thank you for your engagement today with the committee. We look forward to continuing to engage in conversation with you to carry out your mission in a manner that is the way we all want it carried out and the way I know you seek to carry it out, professionally each and every day, correcting what needs corrected but never losing sight of what the objective is. And I want to thank you for that. That concludes today's hearing. We thank our witness for appearing before the committee today. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witness or additional materials for the record. Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.