Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Screenshot from committee webcast)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Tuesday was grilled by senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee about funding estimates for a barrier along the southern border, as well as concerns about the Trump administration’s adherence to due process in immigration enforcement.
Noem was sharply criticized by Democrats for her answers to questions about habeas corpus, which they said she did not define correctly. “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,” Noem said before she was cut off by Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, who had asked her for a definition.
“That’s incorrect,” Hassan said. “Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason.”
As for the cost of President Donald Trump’s border plans, even Republicans expressed doubts.
“I know the wall is (of) great symbolic value, but I think we should reassess the cost,” Republican Chair Rand Paul of Kentucky said about the House’s reconciliation package, which calls for $46 billion in border wall funding.
Noem appeared before the committee to discuss President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget request for Congress along with the border security provisions in the reconciliation package. Congressional Republicans are using reconciliation — a special procedure that skirts the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster — to put together one bill to fulfill Trump’s priorities on border security, tax cuts, energy policy and defense.
“The border crisis is the biggest problem that was facing our country, and it was one that was imperative to fixing for our nation’s future,” Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, said. “We’re solving this crisis at a record pace, and we have delivered the most secure border in American history.”
Senate Democrats pressed Noem about DHS spending, noting that she is on track to run out of funding by mid-July, and her agency’s immigration crackdown that has led to expensive immigration enforcement.
The top Democrat on the panel, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, noted that detaining migrants at the Guantanamo naval base costs as much as $100,000 a day, compared to $160 a day at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
“I think that’s kind of outrageous,” Peters said. “I’m concerned by the staggering cost of this, and I would hope, Secretary (Noem), you could commit to providing this committee a detailed breakdown of the total cost of that operation there.”
Noem said she would get the cost breakdown for him.
Questions about habeas corpus
Several Senate Democrats, including Hassan, Andy Kim of New Jersey and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, questioned comments from senior White House officials such as Stephen Miller, who has said discussions about suspending habeas corpus were underway.
Habeas corpus allows people in the U.S. who believe they are being unlawfully detained to petition for their release in court, and it can be used to challenge immigration detention.
The U.S. Constitution in allowing for habeas corpus to be suspended says “in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” That provision is within Article I of the Constitution, which covers the functions of the legislative branch, or Congress.
Habeas corpus has only been suspended four times in U.S. history, during the Civil War; in almost a dozen South Carolina counties that were overrun by the Ku Klux Klan during reconstruction; in a 1905 insurrection in U.S. territories in the Philippines; and after the Pearl Harbor bombing in Hawaii.
Slotkin told Noem she was concerned by her response that she believes the president has the right to suspend habeas corpus.
“You sat here in front of all of us and swore an oath to the Constitution,” Slotkin said to Noem, adding that if the president were to suspend habeas corpus, it would be a “complete overreach.”
“It is a right that we all get, that American citizens get, that people who are in the United States legally have,” Slotkin said.
Kim asked Noem, a former member of the U.S. House, if she knew what section of the Constitution allows for the suspension of habeas corpus and which article it’s under.
Noem did not know the answer to either question.
“It’s in Article I,” Kim said. “Do you know which branch of government Article I outlines the tasks and the responsibilities for?”
Noem said Congress. She then argued former President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia because of the Civil War and initially did so without congressional approval. He later called Congress back into session to get congressional approval for it.
Reality show with competing immigrants
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut asked Noem if DHS was considering hosting a reality show that would make immigrants compete for citizenship, according to multiple media reports.
Noem vehemently denied that DHS was looking at it.
“There may have been something submitted somewhere along the line, because there are proposals pitched to the department, but me and my executive team have no knowledge of a reality show, and it’s not under consideration,” she said.
Kim pressed Noem about the recent confrontation between House lawmakers and immigration officials at Delaney Hall in his home state of New Jersey.
Three New Jersey Democratic members – Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez — were in Newark protesting the reopening of Delaney Hall, an immigrant detention center.
The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, who was also protesting, was arrested.
The Trump administration Monday levied two felony charges against one of those members, McIver, accusing her of assaulting officers during Baraka’s arrest.
Kim said he was concerned about the incident and asked Noem if she was aware that members of Congress do not need prior notice to conduct oversight at DHS facilities.
Members of Congress are allowed to conduct oversight visits at any DHS facility that detains immigrants, without prior notice, under provisions in an appropriations law.
Noem accused the three House members of “storming” the facility.
“We give tours when members of Congress ask for it, we just ask that they not be politicized,” she said.
Prep for big sporting events
Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott and Rand Paul asked Noem about how prepared DHS is for providing security to big sporting events such as the Super Bowl and soccer’s World Cup.
Scott wanted to know how security preparations for the 2026 World Cup, which includes games in Miami, are going.
Miami is one of 11 U.S. cities hosting the World Cup. The others are Atlanta; Boston; Dallas; Houston; Kansas City, Missouri; Los Angeles; the San Francisco Bay area; the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area; Philadelphia; and Seattle.
“We are working diligently with FIFA and other entities to ensure that cities and states have the assets that they need. This will be an unprecedented world event,” Noem said. “It will be taking place in three different countries and many cities across our country, but also Mexico and Canada, and it will take place over a month.”
The World Cup, which first began in the 1930s, is typically held in one country every four years. The last time two countries hosted the month-long event was in 2002, with Japan and South Korea.
Paul asked Noem if the NFL or FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, ever paid DHS for its security measures.
Noem said no.
“Here’s my point,” Paul said. “The NFL makes billions of dollars. These people ought to pay. I mean, it’s ridiculous that the average taxpayer could never afford to go to an NFL Super Bowl, (and) has got to pay for their security.”
