Noem Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the hearing, ranking member Dick Durbin criticized the department's immigration enforcement efforts. You and your agency rushed to brand these victims as quote domestic terrorists. We have ample video evidence and eyewitness testimony proving you are wrong. Your statements cause immeasurable pain to these families. Let me give you an opportunity to do the right thing. Do you retract these statements identifying these individuals as domestic terrorists? You know, Senator Durbin, when we have these situations happen, we always offer our condolences to those families and I offer mine as well. These are tragic situations and I can't imagine what these families go through in losing a loved one. What I will say is we always work to provide the American people with as much information as possible, that we're relying on reports from the ground and from agents that are there and working to be transparent and we'll continue to do all that we can to provide the accurate information and the facts to people as we can. Durbin pushed for what he called a humane way to deal with immigration enforcement. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn responded to his comments criticizing the Biden administration's To me, there is nothing sensible and humane about allowing millions of people to violate the rule of law in the United States and I yield to you for a response. Yes, well thank you Senator. When you look at the Biden immigration policies, I think Senator Durbin is ignoring the consequences of illegal immigration. Over 30% of the young girls that cross that border during that invasion were raped and brutally harmed by people along the way. There's nobody that crossed that border, came in from Mexico, that didn't have to pay a cartel member to get into this country. Those cartels have been enriched and made sophisticated and professionalized by the money that Joe Biden facilitated putting into their pockets by allowing that invasion to happen and funneling people into the cartel's hands. I also would say that 4,000 people died during that invasion. When people were coming into this country, died because of the inhumane circumstances that were going on. From the heat that they were having to deal with, from drowning in the river, it was not humane what we saw being facilitated by the Biden administration. Noem's testimony comes as congressional Democrats demand that DHS overhaul its immigration enforcement efforts. Until that time, Democrats have refused to agree to new funding for the department. Republicans are pushing back, saying the DHS needs funding after the strikes on Iran and the FBI's warning of elevated threats here in the U.S. Noem is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow.