The Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, was criticized by the Democrats of the House of Representatives while testifying before the National Security Committee of the 2026 Budget Chamber of his department on Wednesday.
The audience quickly became immigration and had the Democrats in the committee, with the Bennie Thompson classification member, D-Miss., He told Noem that under his leadership, it is a “sad day for the DHS.”
“Frankly, I have never seen anything like that it served as the main democrat in this committee. Even when, Madam Secretary, my Republican colleagues and I had strong disagreements, we still have productive conversations and made our duty keep the United States safe.
“On its clock, the department is violating the law, it is harming people and is making the United States less safe,” he added. “The Trump administration is lying directly to the American courts and the people.”
The Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, speaks during an hearing with the National Security Committee of the House of Representatives in Capitol Hill on May 14, 2025 in Washington, DC
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Noem was asked about what happened last week in New Jersey when three members of the Congress tried to obtain access to Delany Hall, a private detention center that has ice detainees, and testified that it was “without law.” The incident outside the detention center resulted in a melee fight and ended with the mayor of Newark Ras Baraka, a Democrat who also runs for the governor of New Jersey, being arrested.
“We have images of those members of the Congress that criticize their bodies to our agents of the law, pushing them shouting blasphemies on their faces, hitting them with their fists and in another way the police,” Noem testified. “The behavior was anarchy, and it was under this agency. The members of the Congress should not enter into federal detention centers. If these members had requested a tour, we would certainly have facilitated a tour.”
Delany Hall is under the scope of the Department of National Security and the Immigration and Customs Control of the United States, and the members of the Congress argued that they had the right to carry out a legal “supervision” in the installation through their responsibilities of the Congress.
“They were cooperating with criminals to create criminal acts. This was not a supervision. This was a serious crime,” Noem told this week in Fox News. “This was dating and attacking people who defend the rule of law, and it was absolutely horrible.”
Later at the audience, representative Seth Magaziner, Dr.i., criticized Noem for what he said it was a lack of access to a legal advisor.
“You are deporting children with cancer, children who are American citizens, a gay makeup artist who did not commit any crime and did not even enter the country illegally,” Magaziner told Noem. “Instead of focusing on real criminals, you have allowed innocent children to be deported while flying through the country playing disguised for cameras.”
Meanwhile, Noem’s Republicans and the camera highlighted what she called “total operational control” of the southern border. Noem said he does not know how many immigrants who lack legal status to be in the United States were released in the country during the Biden administration and promised that the Trump administration has focused on fixing the border crisis.
“We really have no idea how many dangerous people are still in the United States of America. Since President Trump has been in office, only in these few months, we have deported more than 250 known terrorists outside the country,” he said.
The member representative of the committee classification, Bennie Thompson, speaks during an audience of the National Security Committee with Testimony of the National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem in the requests for Fiscal Year 2026, in Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, May 14, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Images
Noem was also pressed on whether all those who have arrested received due process, and she replied that yes, through the tools that Congress has given him, arguing that the elimination issued is a tool that Congress has allowed.
Going to a stary life controversial, the representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat of California, showed Noem an image of the hand of Kilmar Abrego García that seemed to have the MS-13 letters in his hands to represent what the tattoos mean.
Noem did not answer the question about whether the photo was edited or manipulated to put the lyrics in their knuckles, and she seemed to avoid analyzing the photo.
“You will not look at the photo, and we will not bring whether or not to stay here, and you look to your right, the photo in front of the secretary of Lady,” Swalwell said. “Can you look right in the photo in front of you?”
“And the letters and the numbers 13, are they handled or not?” asked.
“I have no knowledge about this photo,” he said, adding that it is “incredible” that Swalwell would like to focus on Abrego García.
