Check out the top viral moments as DHS Sec Noem’s hearing closes

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem debated the matter with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. of the Trump administration Immigration Enforcement Crackdown – A long-awaited hearing that has come under scrutiny in recent months for his tough immigration enforcement efforts and the fatal shootings of Renee Goode and Alex Pretty in January.

Noem and ICE officials have been in the crosshairs of Democrats in recent weeks over the department’s handling of the Minnesota unrest, prompting Democrats — and two Senate Republicans — to call for Noem to resign.

The hour-long hearing comes as the Senate The plan remains deadlocked To fully fund DHS by September. Democrats in the chamber had previously laid out a list of 10 demands they said immigration officials must meet before agreeing to pass a short-term funding measure. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and others have criticized Noem for asking him to fully fund DHS two weeks after the two ICE shootings in Minnesota and Noem’s testimony. “Expect her to rubber stamp her record-breaking budget,” Durbin previously said.

Meanwhile, Republicans and Noem used Tuesday’s hearing to warn about the effects of a partial shutdown on numerous federal departments and agencies under the sprawling umbrella of DHS — including the Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, FEMA and the US Coast Guard.

Here are the biggest moments from Tuesday’s hearing.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearing. (Graeme Sloan/Getty Images) (Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)

‘Reckless’ and ‘unnecessary’: Noem blasts Senate Dems for DHS shutdown

Noem focused her anger during Tuesday’s hearing on Senate Democrats, whom she accused of failing to keep DHS funding until September even after the House passed a bipartisan, full-year funding bill.

“Although the House has passed a bipartisan, bicameral, full-year DHS funding bill, it is the Senate Democrats who have chosen not to fund the department and are holding the department hostage,” Noem said Tuesday, listing national security efforts that could be hampered by a prolonged shutdown — including, but not limited to, border security. disaster response, Cyber ​​securityand critical infrastructure protection.

She also cited the impact the agency-wide shutdown has had on DHS’s broader workforce, which includes some 22 federal departments and agencies under one umbrella.

“More than 100,000 dedicated DHS employees are once again being asked to work without pay for the third time in just five months, at a time when we have created the most secure border in history and removed nearly 3 million illegal aliens from our country,” she said. “To disrupt a department responsible for that profit is inexcusable.”

DHS Secretary Kristi Nome calls for her firing, new Alex Pretty video

Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, Sept. 16, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Durbin, Noem spar over criminal statistics, extraction

Earlier on Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. , pressed Noem to explain DHS’s failure to comply with federal court orders seeking to block or halt some of the Trump administration’s broader immigration enforcement efforts and removal efforts. “Sir, we follow the law that applies to our department and who we detain and who we deport,” Noem told Durbin.

Durbin followed up by referencing statistics from Trump’s first term that found 85% Immigrant ICE Detention “There was no violent criminal record.”

“Sir, when you talk about violent crime, it doesn’t matter what you’re saying about crimes that you don’t count, those are the ones that affect American families every day,” Noem replied. “You don’t count DUI. You don’t count embezzlement. You don’t count theft. And you’re spreading other crimes against people and drug trafficking.”

” If you count the crimes committed by these individual illegal aliens in this country, 65% to 70% of people in custody today have these crimes on their records,” Noem said. “In addition to the crime of being in this country illegally.”

It was triggered by the shutdown of airport escorts by Democrats demanding snow reforms

Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem is recognized as President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2 in Washington. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)

Noem: DHS has no plans to deploy ICE officers to polling places on Election Day

In a remarkable moment, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. , echoing a view recently endorsed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, pressed Noem on whether DHS planned to deploy ICE officers to polling places on Election Day.

Asked if she would rule out deploying ICE or CBP agents to polling places during the upcoming November midterm elections, Noem replied that “we have no plans to put ICE officers at our polling places.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Koons responded. “But will you deny it? Will you say it won’t happen?”

In response, Noem shot back: “Do you plan to have illegal aliens vote in our elections?” In a moment that drew widespread praise from conservative commentators on social media.

Anti-ICE protesters gather in Minnesota on Saturday, February 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

Noem says Biden admin ‘paid’ to traffic children into US

Noem also updated Grasley on the status of HHS’s Unaccompanied Children (UC) program, which under the Biden administration placed more than 11,000 immigrant children in homes with non-vetted sponsors without parents or legal guardians. According to the data His office shared. Grassley’s office had previously submitted multiple oversight requests to DHS over the program, citing concerns it placed children with dangerous or unsupervised sponsors and barred sharing information with law enforcement.

DHS, led by Grassley and Trump, has alleged that the Biden administration has “turned a blind eye” to children who need proper supervision and care, and cited concerns about failed background checks, a lack of documentation in some cases and a lax vetting process that allows immigrant children in the program to be “lost” or otherwise released to dangerous sponsors.

Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General A Report the event last year, and which Noem was referring to during her testimony Tuesday.

Noem told lawmakers on Tuesday that 450,000 children who entered the U.S. as “assistant alien children” were “lost and untraceable by the Biden administration.”

“We’ve found about 145,000 of them, and we’ve done that through the investigative work of our Homeland Security Investigations Team,” Noem said.

“One of the things that is challenging is, under the Biden administration, the government paid sponsors in HHS to host these children and those sponsors – many times we found instances where they trafficked these children themselves,” Noem added.

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“So under that administration, we not only had children in this country as part of a program, but the government was paying people who were knowingly trafficking them and abusing them,” Noem said. “It’s stopped,” she added. “We have located these children and placed them back with their families and loved ones who care for them when we have the opportunity to do so.”

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