Jayapal Demands Kristi Noem 'Be Fired, Resign, or Be Impeached'—and DHS 'Dismantled'

Surrounded by people who have accused the Department of Homeland Security of violating their civil rights, Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Wednesday demanded that Secretary Kristi Noem be removed from her role as head of the agency.

"Today in the House Judiciary Committee, I questioned Secretary Noem. I gave her an opportunity to answer for her agents' lawlessness and the trauma that her personnel have inflicted on immigrants and citizens alike," Jayapal (D-Wash.) said at a news conference outside the Capitol building. "Instead, what we heard from her was excuses, deflections, and flat-out lies."

Jayapal grilled Noem on Wednesday during her second day of testimony before Congress, accusing her agency of “unlawfully detaining US citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment."

An investigation published by ProPublica in October found that at least 170 citizens had been arrested or detained by immigration agents, and many more have been reported since.

The congresswoman said that after months of denying, despite the mountain of evidence, that any US citizens had been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Noem finally acknowledged the detention of 18 US citizens by ICE in a letter sent Tuesday.

Jayapal then revealed that four other citizens, "who were not even included" in Noem's letter, were in the hearing room.

She read the story of Patricia O'Keefe, who she said "was monitoring ICE agents when they deployed pepper spray into her car vent without provocation."

"They smashed her car windows, pulled her and her friend out, arrested them for 'obstruction,' and detained them," Jayapal explained. "Patricia saw an entire area dedicated to detaining US citizens."

"An ICE agent also said, 'You guys have to stop obstructing us. That's why that lesbian bitch is dead,' referring to Renee Good," who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis in January. "ICE detained Patricia for over eight hours," Jayapal said.

She relayed the stories of the other citizens in the room, who she said had been detained for several hours for monitoring agents or peacefully protesting.

One was kept in leg irons for six hours after attempting to monitor agents from his car. Another was hit with a pepper ball while protesting and denied medical treatment or the ability to change out of clothes that were coated with dangerous chemicals. Another observer was chased down by agents and had firearms pointed at him before the situation was defused by local police, though he was detained for six hours.

Noting Noem's previous statements that ICE can arrest citizens if they are obstructing law enforcement or if there is "probable cause," Jayapal then asked the people she'd invited about the circumstances of their detention.

All of them responded that they were not charged with any crime after their encounters, that they were not questioned about their citizenship, and that they were all exercising their First Amendment rights.

Asked if she had anything to say to the four individuals or "the millions of American citizens across the country that are watching this and horrified at what your department is doing," Noem responded that “context is critical in each of these situations, to know the full range of what happened in each of these situations before and after the incident and their arrest.”

Jayapal reiterated: "Secretary, not a single one was charged with a crime, and they were detained."

Elsewhere during the hearing, Noem doubled down on her agency's most controversial tactics.

After Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) showed the secretary videos of citizens being violently dragged out of their homes and cars in arrests by agents without judicial warrants, Noem defended the agency’s practice, which experts have said violates the constitutional protection against unlawful search and seizure.

Other questions she evaded. When Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) asked her point-blank if she believed Good and Alex Pretti, whom ICE agents "shot in the face and killed," were "domestic terrorists" as Noem and others in the Trump administration claimed without evidence, the secretary repeatedly refused to correct the record, as ICE's acting director Todd Lyons did during a hearing last month.

Following Wednesday's hearing, Jayapal said Noem's responses "only further cemented my belief that she needs to resign, be fired, or be impeached."

"She refused to accept responsibility for the actions of ICE and [Customs and Border Protection], for the arrests of US citizens, for the deaths of 40 immigrants in ICE custody, for the kidnapping and the disappearances of children like Liam Ramos, and for the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in the streets of Minnesota," Jayapal said. "It is a terrible shame that she could not do any of that."

Noem's appearance on Capitol Hill comes as DHS has been partially shut down for nearly three weeks, with Democrats demanding reforms to the agency's conduct in exchange for full funding.

Republicans have thus far refused to budge on demands that agents obtain judicial warrants before entering homes and private spaces, stop wearing masks to conceal their identities, and rein in the practice of “roving patrols” that have often taken the form of indiscriminate arrests rife with racial profiling.

She said Noem's testimony also affirmed her belief that "DHS, ICE, and CBP need to be dismantled."

"There is no reason for them to operate in this way with zero accountability and no way to ensure that they actually protect our residents rather than terrorize them," Jayapal said. "That is why I have refused to give another cent to these agencies without significant reforms."