Washington, March 3 – A US Senate oversight hearing on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) turned sharply confrontational on Tuesday, as Democrats accused the agency of excessive force and violations of civil liberties, while DHS Secretary Kristi Noem rejected the claims and defended enforcement actions as lawful.
Senator Richard Durbin, the committee's top Democrat, said that under Noem's leadership, the department has been "lacking any moral compass or respect for the rule of law".
He alleged that immigration agents have acted with "unspeakable cruelty against children, immigrant families, and American citizens".
Referring to fatal encounters, the powerful Democratic Senator challenged Noem over public statements labeling certain individuals as "domestic terrorists".
He said such characterizations caused "immeasurable pain" to families and asked whether the DHS Secretary would retract them.
Noem responded that in such cases the department offers "condolences to those families" and works "to provide the American people with as much information as possible", relying on "reports from the ground and from agents that are there".
She said that DHS will "continue to do all that we can to provide the accurate information and the facts".
Durbin also pointed to statistics showing that less than 14 per cent of immigrants arrested during US President Donald Trump's first year back in office had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses.
He said that broad enforcement actions risk sweeping up individuals who are not serious offenders.
He referenced what he described as a "3,000 person a day arrest quota", suggesting such a target would require aggressive and indiscriminate enforcement.
Noem did not directly address the quota figure but said the department is enforcing laws "that the US Congress has passed".
Illinois Senator Durbin accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of arriving in cities without coordinating with local law enforcement and acting in "paramilitary gear".
He also alleged violations of court orders and constitutional protections, including the Fourth Amendment's safeguards against warrantless entry.
Noem defended the department's use of administrative warrants as "the process that Congress has given us".
She said that in "400,000 cases that ICE has used these administrative warrants, only 28 times have they been used to enter a home", and noted that the process "has been affirmed by the Supreme Court as the correct way to follow the law".