Kristi Noem Grilled By Veronica Escobar About ICE Raid On Home Of U.S. Citizens

Forbes Breaking News

At a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) questioned Sec. Kristi Noem about ICE actions.

Transcript

00:00Madam Secretary, I have a question related to something more close to home

00:06for me in the community in El Paso with DHS employees. For decades CBP employees

00:14who work at our land ports of entry have been contractually allowed by CBP to

00:21have an off-site location for their union and this off-site location was

00:27completely funded by union dues not by taxpayer money and again this was

00:32something agreed to in their contract. I was shocked and alarmed to learn that

00:38they were told by DHS they could no longer be off-site and they were forced

00:43to come into a DHS facility in El Paso. It's a it's a conference room media

00:50training room so that part of their contract that a long-standing

00:57agreement was violated in my eyes. Are you aware of this at all? I have heard

01:04about it but I would I have not I don't know the details of that agreement so I

01:08can follow up with you and get that back to you and if you would lay out the

01:12concerns for being co-located I think that would be fantastic for me to know. We

01:17will. We'll we'll make sure to communicate with your team would love to

01:20work with you on this. The same has not been true for the Border Patrol Union so

01:26there is a there's disparate treatment and additionally just to very quickly lay

01:33out why it's important for union members to be able to speak to their

01:38union leaders in private and being located in in a small conference room

01:44media training room offers no privacy. There are other issues but I look

01:50forward to working with you. I do know that you know the difference in the two

01:53unions is important and there's I'll look at to how those were interpreted and I

01:59also know that the the one union is located under the Treasury Union as well

02:03and that defines some requirements and for how it's regulated and set out going

02:09forward so I'll see if that is the determining factor on why there was a

02:12difference in how the locations were determined. And I would ask Madam Secretary

02:18that you please allow the El Paso Union to continue to be housed off-site. It is

02:24their preference doesn't impact the budget or appropriations they pay for it so I

02:32I don't see a reason why this long-standing decades-long situation should be changed so

02:40would ask for your support for that please. I'll look into it. Okay perfect. I also

02:45wanted to ask you about this NBC news story and I'll enter into the record this

02:51article as well. U.S. citizen family traumatized after ICE raided their Oklahoma's

02:57home in search of someone else and according to the local affiliate KFOR

03:02which was reporting on this story immigration agents raided the home last

03:08week they had a search warrant for the home but the suspects listed on the

03:12warrant were no longer living in the home the family was forced to wait outside

03:17in the rain during the search mother and her girls all U.S. citizens their money was

03:24taken their laptop their cell phone I asked you at the top of the my our first

03:30round if you believed it was important for DHS and if you would attest to the

03:35fact that DHS needs to rectify any mistakes if this were a mistake will you

03:40ensure that this family this U.S. citizen family gets its property back in a timely

03:45manner? Well in that particular situation the warrant for that situation was on the

03:52house in the facility not on the individuals that were there and so that

03:56house was being used for human smuggling and so those are prior against the

04:02facility and even in that situation there was some individuals there with the

04:07same last names and some of the similarities. But if it were a mistake we're

04:11we're not a secretary if everything was done appropriately and we'll continue to

04:15make sure that it is done and handled appropriately. All right well appreciate

04:19you looking into it that not my constituents but you had mentioned in

04:24your testimony and you've said previously that the focus of your agency is to go

04:29after the worst of the worst people who are here illegally but we have seen

04:34reporting and spoken to individuals we meaning Congress that in fact there have

04:41been abuses on that front people with legal protections have been deported I laid out

04:47in the first round U.S. citizen children I don't know and I asked and you said

04:52you'd get back to me about whether parents actually filled out the ice forms that

04:56are normally used for those processes the U.S. citizen families with nothing to do

05:03with human trafficking and now DHS employees as well in my view have been

05:11been subjected to an abuse of power and we all took we all swore an oath to the

05:17Constitution this is a democratic republic rule of law is important due process is

05:24important and ultimately that will be my North Star not just in this hearing but

05:30throughout everything that I work on as a member of Congress. I thank you Madam

05:35Secretary and Mr. Chairman I yield back.

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