FILE - Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
By: Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON (South Dakota Searchlight) — The top Democrat on a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee panel Thursday slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for her handling of her agency’s funding and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Sen. Chris Murphy warned Noem that DHS is at risk of running out of its $65 billion in funding by July – two months before the end of the fiscal year – and therefore close to triggering the Antideficiency Act, a federal law prohibiting government agencies from spending funds in excess of their appropriations.
“Your department is out of control,” the Connecticut Democrat told Noem. “You are running out of money.”
Noem, who appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, was also grilled by Democrats about the high-profile case of a wrongly deported Maryland man sent in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The White House’s “skinny” budget proposal suggests $107 billion for DHS starting Oct. 1, and assumes that Republicans pass the reconciliation package under consideration to allocate a massive $175 billion overall in border security.
“If we now live in a world in which the administration spends down the accounts that were priorities for Republicans and does not spend down the priorities that were priorities for Democrats, I don’t know how we do a budget,” Murphy said.
Sen. Patty Murray, top Democrat on the full Senate Appropriations Committee, slammed Noem for not following “our appropriations laws.”
She was critical of how immigration enforcement has caught up U.S. citizens and immigrants with protected legal statuses.
“Your crackdown has roped in American citizens and people who are here legally with no criminal record,” the Washington Democrat said.
She also criticized Noem for spending $100 million on TV ads that range from praising the president to warning migrants not to come to the United States or to self-deport.
Noem in addition launched this week an initiative to provide up to $1,000 in “travel assistance” to immigrants without legal authorization to self-deport, which would amount to $1 billion if President Donald Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people is met. The source of those funds in the DHS budget is unclear.
Murray asked Noem about more than $100 billion in DHS funds not being used or re-programmed elsewhere for immigration enforcement, and called it “an illegal freeze.”
She then asked Noem when DHS would unfreeze those funds.
Noem did not answer and instead blamed the Biden administration, and said the previous administration “perverted” how the funds were used.
Murray said she did not think it was “credible that $100 billion is used to break the law.”
“I am very concerned that DHS is now dramatically over-spending funding that Congress has not provided,” Murray said. “We take our responsibility seriously to fund your department and others. We need to have answers, we need to have accountability, and we need to make sure you’re not overspending money that you were not allocated.”
Abrego Garcia deportation
Noem got into a heated exchange with one of the Democrats on the panel, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to speak with wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration has admitted his deportation was an “administrative error.”
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, who was sent initially to brutal CECOT but is now housed in another prison.
Van Hollen asked Noem what DHS has done to bring back Abrego Garcia, who had a 2019 court order barring his return to his home country of El Salvador for fear he would be harmed by gang violence.
Noem did not answer what steps the Trump administration was taking and said that because Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, he is in that nation’s custody and cannot be brought back.
Trump has contradicted his own administration, stating that if he wanted to bring back Agrego Garcia he would, but won’t because he believes Abrego Garcia has gang ties.
While Trump officials like Noem have alleged that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, no evidence has been provided in court and federal Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, called the accusations “hearsay.”
Noem then questioned why Van Hollen was advocating for Abrego Garcia in the first place.
“Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming to me,” she said.
Van Hollen said that he was advocating for due process, which the Trump administration has been accused of skirting in its deportations. A federal judge in Louisiana next week plans to hold a hearing to determine if the Trump administration violated due process in deporting a 2-year-old U.S. citizen and her mother to Honduras.
Murphy also pressed Noem on the issue and asked how she was coordinating with El Salvador for Abrego Garcia’s release.
“There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States,” she said.
Noem then said that even if Abrego Garcia were returned to the U.S., “we would immediately deport him again.”
GOP worried about students, TPS holders
Some Republicans on the panel, including the committee chair, raised concerns with Noem about how the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is affecting students with visas.
“There are so many others who do deserve scrutiny,” said Chairwoman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who said she was worried about students from Canada who attend school in her home state. “But these are dually enrolled Canadian students, and they’ve been crossing the border for years without trouble.”
She said Canadian students are being stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and given intense screenings.
“They have student visas, but they’re being subjected to extensive searches and questioning,” she said to Noem. “I don’t want us to discourage Canadian students from studying at the northern Maine institutions that we have for education.”
Noem said she would look into it.
Alaskan Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised the issue of paperwork not being processed for those with Temporary Protected Status in her state. TPS is granted to those who come from a country that is considered too dangerous or unstable to return to due to war, natural disasters or other instability.
Murkowski said several groups of immigrants in her state with temporary protected status and humanitarian protection are at risk of losing their work protections, such as Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Ukrainians.
“The majority of these folks are just truly valued members of their new community,” Murkowski said. “They’re helping us meet workforce needs and really contributing to the tax base here. They’ve expressed great concern about their status and work authorizations that may be revoked or allowed to expire.”
She said that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not processed TPS or humanitarian protection renewals for up to five months.
Noem said that those with TPS are being looked at, and admitted that some Ukrainians got an erroneous email that notified them their status was revoked.
She said DHS has not made a decision on whether or not to renew TPS for Ukrainians, who were granted the status due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.
“Some of these TPS programs have been in place for many, many years, but the evaluation on why TPS should be utilized and when it can be utilized by a country is the process that the administration is going through,” Noem said.
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