Durbin, SJC Dems cite alarming conduct such as the unnecessary use of force by masked ICE agents, family separations, targeting of workers, unjustified invocation of wartime powers, defiance of court orders, ignoring congressional oversight, and deployment of National Guard to California
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led all Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats in calling on Chairman Grassley to schedule Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem for testimony before the committee.
In a letter to Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Senators write: “We request that you immediately convene a Judiciary Committee oversight hearing with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to discuss the Department of Homeland Security’s escalating use of alarming immigration enforcement practices.”
The Senators cited recent alarming conduct as part of the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, writing: “Federal agents’ conduct during the incident last week with Senator Padilla has become all too common. We increasingly are seeing masked agents, acting with unnecessary force and failing to identify themselves, arresting noncitizens in raids that terrify communities and needlessly separate families. The treatment of Senator Padilla is the latest in a string of attacks on our constitutional order. Earlier this year, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that was last used during World War II to detain Japanese, Italian, and German immigrants. He has sent nearly 300 people to a dangerous and brutal prison in El Salvador without due process. He has consistently failed to comply with court orders. In recent days, he deployed the National Guard to California in response to protests of his Administration’s mass deportations over the objections of state officials.”
The Senators continued by criticizing the Trump Administration’s hypocrisy for abandoning its promise to hold violent criminals accountable, writing: “We must ensure violent criminals are held accountable. The Administration, however, has abandoned its commitment to arresting and deporting dangerous immigrants, sweeping up hardworking, longstanding members of our communities in disorganized and dangerous raids in a misguided effort to meet arrest quotas. One Administration official reports that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller admonished U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials not to focus deportation efforts on criminals.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of Executive Branch agencies under its jurisdiction, regardless of the party in charge of the White House or Congress. During the Biden Administration, then-Chair Durbin held a DHS oversight hearing months into then-Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas’ tenure.
The Senators then admonished the Trump Administration for neglecting to comply with Congressional oversight, writing: “This Administration, however, has dismissed Congress’s critical role in ‘seek[ing] information to help inform Members as they perform their Constitutional duty to legislate and fix real problems for the American people.’ Ranking Member Durbin alone has eight outstanding letters and briefing requests that have gone unanswered by DHS. To quote you once more, Mr. Chairman, ‘oversight brings transparency, and transparency brings accountability. And, the opposite is true. Shutting down oversight requests doesn’t drain the swamp .... It floods the swamp.’”
The Senators concluded by reiterating the necessity for a DHS oversight hearing, writing: “The President should not be allowed to bypass constitutional principles like due process, separation of powers, and federalism. Senator Padilla’s mistreatment by federal agents should be a warning to us all. We urge you to quickly schedule a hearing to ensure we have an opportunity to question Secretary Noem regarding Committee members’ many unanswered requests for information from DHS, and the cruel and un-American steps this Administration has taken to carry out its mass deportation agenda.”
In addition to Durbin, the letter is signed by U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Adam Schiff (D-CA).
For a full PDF of the letter to Chairman Grassley, click here.
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