Noem defends immigration enforcement in Senate hearing after Minneapolis deaths
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced a sharply critical Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, defending the Biden? no—defending the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics and pushing back on Democrats who said she misstated what led to the deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year. Noem said her department’s enforcement actions were carried out amid a “serious and escalating threat” to federal officers and that her earlier comments about the two deaths relied on information she received from the ground.
The hearing marked Noem’s first appearance in Congress since the Minneapolis shootings of two U.S. citizens became a flashpoint for opposition to how the administration is carrying out its mass-deportation agenda. At the time, Noem portrayed the protesters as agitators, a characterization Democrats argued was contradicted by local officials’ accounts and by bystander video.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, challenged Noem directly during the nearly five-hour session, saying that “You and your agency rushed to brand these victims as, quote, domestic terrorists.” Durbin added that “We have ample video evidence and eyewitness testimony proving you are wrong,” and he said Noem’s statements caused “immeasurable pain” to the families.
Noem responded that she was not relying on partisan claims, but on reports she said she received from agents at the scene as the situation unfolded. She told senators she was “getting reports from the ground from agents at the scene,” adding that she characterized the scene as chaotic because of what those agents reported.
Noem said her department’s officers were facing hostility and risk tied to how their actions were described, arguing that “deliberate mischaracterizations of their heroic work and rhetoric that demonizes our law enforcement” have helped create an unsafe environment. She said in that context that she wanted to address what ICE officers face “on the streets today,” describing the threat as both serious and escalating.
The dispute traces back to the enforcement operation in Minnesota that began as a fraud-focused effort but rapidly intensified. Homeland Security sent hundreds of officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, according to the account Noem and lawmakers discussed, and protesters organized marches, patrolled neighborhoods for ICE activity, and provided food to immigrants too afraid to leave their homes.
Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed by an ICE officer on Jan. 7, according to the hearing record summarized in the report. Alex Pretti, a Minnesota resident who was filming enforcement operations, was killed when Customs and Border Protection officers opened fire on Jan. 24, and the deaths prompted calls for accountability and transparency as Noem’s earlier portrayal came under withering criticism.
Democrats said the administration’s response escalated tensions rather than clarifying facts, while Noem and the administration pointed to chaos created by protesters. In the hearing, she defended her portrayal and assigned part of the blame to “violent protesters” for contributing to the conditions officers encountered during enforcement activities.
Between the initial backlash and Tuesday’s testimony, the administration drew down the operation in Minnesota and sent Tom Homan, described in the reporting as border czar, to take control of the effort. Homan announced a drawdown of ICE and CBP officers who had been sent to carry out what was dubbed Operation Metro Surge, while he remained adamant that the mass deportation agenda would continue.
Noem’s testimony also reflected ongoing congressional conflict over how to fund and oversee enforcement activities. The immigration tactics have triggered clashes in Congress over routine funding, even as a spending bill passed last year provided a significant infusion of cash for the administration’s mass deportation policy. Noem criticized a partial shutdown as “reckless” and blamed Democrats for taking a step she said put national security at risk.
Republicans, while broadly supportive of tougher enforcement, also pressed Noem, according to the report, with some questioning both operational decisions and agency management. Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis called her leadership a “disaster,” saying what he saw was “a disaster under your leadership, Miss Noem,” and he criticized her handling of emergency response and her execution of immigration enforcement.
The report also said Tillis argued that Noem’s approach led to innocent people being detained who were U.S. citizens and said the political implications of the deportation effort were shifting public opinion. Another Republican, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, pushed Noem to explain why her department paid more than $200 million for an ad campaign she appeared in last year encouraging migrants to leave the country voluntarily, and questioned whether Trump knew about the price tag in advance.
Noem defended that advertising, telling senators the ads were effective and went through the department’s regular bidding process. “Well, they were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy responded in the exchange described in the report.
The hearing unfolded against a broader security backdrop that included a weekend shooting at a bar in Texas that is being investigated as possible terrorism. The report said the situation raised concerns that the escalating conflict in Iran could have repercussions for security in the United States, adding urgency to questions about law-enforcement risk as Noem sought to frame her agency’s work in that context.