BREAKING NEWS: Andy Kim And Kristi Noem Clash Over Dems' Visit To New Jersey ICE Detention Center

Thank you, Chairman, Madam Secretary. A press release came out from the Department of Homeland Security a couple days ago. It said that members of Congress in New Jersey that went to the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility could, quote, could have just scheduled a tour. I guess I'd just like to hear from you if you can confirm that you understand that members of Congress, by law, are allowed to show up unannounced to conduct oversight visits of ICE detention facilities. Yes, they can conduct oversight. But, Senator, what I would ask is that they understand that that doesn't mean they could show up with a mob with the intention to break in and assault law enforcement officers. That's what happened at Delaney Hall last week. You're familiar. Is that those individuals and those members of Congress were surrounded by criminals, creating criminal and perpetuating criminal acts. You understand that they were already within the facility. But when you show up and ask for a tour, we facilitated every single tour that every member of Congress has wanted. We've always done that. And we have to, when we have a tour, also make sure that we've addressed security concerns and have enough staff and all of that. And we were accommodating that when those individuals showed up and they decided instead to break in. You know that they were already on the ICE premise, already facilitating into having the tour when there was the arrest of the mayor. They were not breaking into the facility. They had broken through the outer fence and they were interior on federal property when the crimes occurred. They were invited in by ICE as the ICE was preparing to give them a tour. That doesn't give them an excuse to start punching law enforcement officers. But you understand that they were not storming the fence at Delaney. Well, I don't understand. Are you making excuses for their behavior that day? I'm just trying to clarify what exactly happened. Oversight is an important part of what Congress does and what you provide to our department. And we welcome it. We give tours when members of Congress ask for it. We just ask that they not be politicized, that they actually are there to provide the oversight that is needed to ensure that we're doing our job. And if I were to show up at ICE detention facility unannounced, I would be let in. Yes, I would ask that you would be allowing us to secure the officers that we need to give you an appropriate tour that we'd be able to cover the other bases and posts that they would have to leave to come and facilitate that. We may have to call other people in to help cover some of that because of the actual responsibilities. But we can do that. I just wanted to make sure I heard that from you. I wanted to just go back to something that was raised earlier about habeas corpus. Can you confirm to us that you understand that any suspension of habeas corpus requires an act of Congress? President Lincoln executed habeas corpus in the past with retroactive action by Congress. I believe that any president that was able to do that in the past, it should be afforded to our current day president. This president has never said he's going to do this. He's never communicated to me or his administration that they're going to consider suspending habeas corpus. But I do think the Constitution allows them the right to consider it. When we saw what happened with how many times has habeas corpus been suspended in our Once that I know of. Four times. The instance that you were referring to was one where the courts subsequently show that Congress is the one that has the ability. Do you know what section of the Constitution the suspension clause of habeas corpus? I do not know. You know which article it is in? No, I do not, sir. Okay, well, it is in Article One. Do you know which branch of government Article One outlines the tasks and the responsibilities? Yes. Which one? Congress. Yes. Stephen Miller has said that he is actively considering that there is active consideration of habeas corpus. I have not. When it comes to FEMA, this is something I'm concerned about being from New Jersey. We've had challenges with Superstorm Sandy and others in the past. I was alarmed when I saw some reports that the acting head Richardson said last Thursday that he's about 80 to 85 percent done with the hurricane season plan, given that we are just days away from hurricane season beginning. I just wanted to ask you, is he done with his hurricane preparedness plan? He is working diligently with the employees at FEMA and are prepared for hurricane season. Have you seen this plan? Yes, I've been actively engaged in hurricane response and preparation. We're pre-staging people, pre-staging equipment. We're making sure that we have tabletop exercise. We're running through with all of our regions on what their response will be. It's been very extensive, how we've laid out this plan. Will you be able to share that plan with this committee? I will check and make sure that I can, but I would think that we would be able to do that. I can't see any reason that that would be. Just one last thing. A couple weeks ago, you said that you were considering restarting in-person training at the National Fire Academy. I just wanted to ask if you're prepared to tell this committee that you are moving forward with restarting in-person trainings? Yes, the plan is to do that again. That has been approved to restart? Yes, it has been. Okay, thank you. And with that, I yield back. Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman.