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During a much-anticipated hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem found herself under intense interrogation from lawmakers across the political spectrum. The session came at a time when her leadership of the department is increasingly under the microscope.
Noem’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was met with a notably frosty reception, including from some Republican members. Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina launched into a 10-minute critique likened to a performance review, while Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana questioned the rationale behind a $220 million advertising campaign, suggesting it merely served to elevate Noem’s public profile.
On the Democratic side, there was a strong push to challenge Noem’s characterization of the late Minnesotans Renee Good and Alex Pretti as domestic terrorists. These claims have faced substantial opposition, particularly after the release of video footage capturing both fatal shootings.
Adding to the tension, two protesters were ejected from the proceedings, one of whom claimed to be a former employee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and publicly criticized Noem, stating she should be ashamed.
Here are five key insights from the hearing.
Two separate protesters were also removed from the hearing, including one woman who identified herself as a former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employee and said Noem should be ashamed of herself.
Here are five takeaways from the hearing.
Noem faces GOP pushback
The hearing was a remarkable display of GOP frustration with Noem, a rare dynamic from lawmakers who are often hesitant to vocally criticize members of the president’s Cabinet.
While many of the panel’s Republican senators praised Noem, Tillis hammered the secretary for everything from quashing independent oversight of her department to killing her own dog. He threatened to place a hold on nominees awaiting confirmation until the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded to his queries on an immigration raid carried out in North Carolina.
“I’m giving you a performance evaluation here I’m not looking for a response,” Tillis said, adding that “time after time after time, I’ve been disappointed.”
Tillis said the DHS’s Office of Inspector General has accused her of stalling his investigations, and he questioned “how bad it has to be for the OIG in this agency to come out and do this publicly.”
He also said he found her confession in her book regarding her dog distressing, saying she failed to train what was the equivalent of a teenager, “and then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices.”
On the ad campaign, Kennedy suggested the video was done to promote Noem rather than the Trump agenda and put the president “in a terribly awkward spot.” He also noted the contracts were awarded to those with long-standing ties to Noem.
“The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked.
Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also asked about the accounting for special government employees, reminding Noem that even half days worked by those employees count against their 130-day time-limited appointment. Corey Lewandowski, a top adviser to Noem, is a special government employee now entering his second year at the department.
Noem pressed on ‘domestic terrorism’ claims about Good, Pretti
Noem was repeatedly asked to apologize for accusing Good and Pretti of trying to carry out acts of domestic terrorism before they were shot and killed by federal agents.
Noem at each turn declined to offer an apology, instead repeatedly offering her sympathy to their families.
“One of the most hurtful things they could ever imagine was said by you about their son,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said, referring to Pretti’s family. She added Noem made the claim “without any evidence of that.”
Pressed by Klobuchar, Noem denied applying the label of “domestic terrorist” to Pretti.
“Ma’am, I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said it appeared to be an incident of [domestic terrorism],” Noem said.
“I think the parents saw it for what it was,” Klobuchar responded.
Pretti’s family at the time pushed back on the accusation, saying, “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.”
At other points during the hearing, Noem defended herself, saying the department was simply trying to provide the public with the best information they had at the time.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked whether she “had concern about misleading the whole country.”
“You weren’t getting out good information. You were making a spurious claim that has caused endless injury to the victims’ families on the basis of god knows what,” he said.
Democrats and Republicans both questioned why Noem would not simply say she was wrong.
“Why can’t we just say we made a mistake?” Tillis asked.
DHS enforcement methods come under fire
The DHS also took heat from both sides of the aisle over how it has carried out immigration enforcement more broadly.
Grassley said he believes “immigration enforcement and dignity aren’t mutually exclusive,” while Tillis said the Trump administration was letting a fixation on deportation guide indiscriminate enforcement.
“We just want numbers. We want a thousand a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day, because numbers matter, right? No, they don’t matter. Quality matters; not quantity, quality. And what we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem a disaster,” Tillis said, noting that enforcement has routinely swept up U.S. citizens.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said later that 170 Americans had been wrongly detained.
“You seem to have no situational awareness whatsoever of some of the most egregious examples of Americans being completely attacked, violated, undermined in accordance with our laws by their own government. And this is what is phenomenal to me, is immigration was your president’s No. 1 issue, overwhelmingly popular with the American people,” he said.
“But now it’s overwhelmingly unpopular, and it’s not because you are deporting dangerous people that everybody here wants out of our country. No, it’s because you’re going into our schools, you’re terrorizing our children, you’re detaining children, you’re arresting Americans, you’re breaking into our homes, you’re terrorizing our streets, you’re violating our rights to peacefully protest again and again and again.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the DHS has been conducting itself as a “paramilitary force.”
“You have no right to deploy immigrant agents as a paramilitary force in American cities,” he said.
Several Democrats also raised that the DHS has been found to have repeatedly violated court orders.
Durbin noted that one judge found U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violated court orders 96 times in January alone. By his count, federal judges across the country have ruled more than 4,440 times that ICE is detaining immigrants illegally.
Under questioning from Booker, Noem said she was complying with court orders, which left the senator incredulous.
“You are saying under oath that you do,” he said before pointing to the ruling from Minnesota finding otherwise.
“Either you are utterly incompetent, or you are violating laws with impunity,” he said.
Noem was also roasted by Tillis, who accused her of stifling the reviews of the killings of Good and Pretti and argued her actions were undermining law enforcement.
The investigation is “going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back,” he said, while chastising her for shutting out other agencies.
“Law enforcement needs to learn from that. You don’t protect them by not looking after the facts. Not only should the FBI be investigating it, but every single law enforcement agency in that jurisdiction should be invited to it. … Officer-involved shootings have a formula that we should go through every time, and we’re not going through that formula.”
Lawmakers press Noem on ad campaign
Noem was repeatedly asked about an ad campaign launched in February 2025 that showed the secretary encouraging migrants to leave the country.
The DHS had invoked a national emergency at the time, which allowed it to avoid the competitive bidding process. While the contract was initially given to Safe America Media LLC, a firm formed just days prior, much of the work was performed by the Strategy Group. That company was involved with Noem’s 2022 gubernatorial race, previously worked with Lewandowski, and its CEO is married to former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
Noem repeatedly denied having any insight into how the contract was awarded, saying it was handled by career officials.
“This contract went to a company that didn’t exist two weeks before they got the contract,” Schiff said.
“Are you saying it’s just a coincidence, it’s just a happy circumstance, it’s just that a fortuitous event, that $143 million of that went to a subcontractor that you worked with extensively as governor in South Dakota or for your campaign, that that is just coincidental?”
“You’re trying to say that this was a political decision, and it absolutely was not,” Noem said.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) also questioned how the contract went to such a newly formed company before the subcontract was given to the firm with connections to top DHS officials.
“Do you realistically think that a company that was created 11 days before they got $143 million is in a position to execute a $143 million contract?” he asked.
Kennedy said during his line of questioning that “my research shows that you did not bid them out.”
“It troubles me that a fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money, when we’re scratching for every penny and we’re fighting over rescission packages I just can’t agree with Madam Secretary,” he said.
The Strategy Group later wrote on X that it received “$226,137.17 total for 5 film shoots, 45 produced video advertisements and 6 produced radio advertisements” as a subcontractor for Safe America.
Senators, Noem spar over DHS shutdown
Noem used her appearance to plead for the Senate to reach a deal to end the DHS shutdown, which is now in its third week, though she pinned the blame on Democrats.
“More than 100,000 dedicated DHS employees are once again being asked to work without pay for the third time in just five months,” Noem said in her opening statement.
“The latest Democrat-led shutdown of DHS is reckless, it’s unnecessary and it undermines the American national security and it harms the men and women who work at DHS and their families. … Critical national security missions, including border security, immigration enforcement, aviation security, disaster response, cyber security and the protection of critical infrastructure are all being strained.”
Durbin, however, argued the administration was doing plenty to harm national security on its own.
“While Republicans claim the DHS shutdown is putting us at risk, the reality is this administration has engaged in mass layoffs of career national security officials and diverted many others from protecting the homeland with the president’s mass deportation campaign,” he said, adding that Noem still has “an unprecedented amount of appropriated funds more than the United States Marine Corps.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Democrats were willing to fund the Transportation Security Administration and other essential agencies as negotiations over immigration enforcement continue.
“It is the administration that is holding those agencies hostage in order to extract additional funding for ICE and CBP. That is our quite clearly stated position,” he said, referring to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.