WASHINGTON  — The top Democrat on a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee panel Thursday slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for her handling of her agency’s funding and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Sen. Chris Murphy warned Noem that DHS is at risk of running out of its $65 billion in funding by July – two months before the end of the fiscal year – and therefore close to triggering the Antideficiency Act, a federal law prohibiting government agencies from spending funds in excess of their appropriations.

“Your department is out of control,” the Connecticut Democrat told Noem. “You are running out of money.”

Noem, who appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, was also grilled by Democrats about the high-profile case of a wrongly deported Maryland man sent in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The White House’s “skinny” budget proposal suggests $107 billion for DHS starting Oct. 1, and assumes that Republicans pass the reconciliation package under consideration to allocate a massive $175 billion overall in border security.

“If we now live in a world in which the administration spends down the accounts that were priorities for Republicans and does not spend down the priorities that were priorities for Democrats, I don’t know how we do a budget,” Murphy said.

Sen. Patty Murray, top Democrat on the full Senate Appropriations Committee, slammed Noem for not following “our appropriations laws.”

She was critical of how immigration enforcement has caught up U.S. citizens and immigrants with protected legal statuses.

“Your crackdown has roped in American citizens and people who are here legally with no criminal record,” the Washington Democrat said.

She also criticized Noem for spending $100 million on TV ads that range from praising the president to warning migrants not to come to the United States or to self-deport.

Noem in addition launched this week an initiative to provide up to $1,000 in “travel assistance” to immigrants without legal authorization to self-deport, which would amount to $1 billion if President Donald Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people is met. The source of those funds in the DHS budget is unclear.

Murray asked Noem about more than $100 billion in DHS funds not being used or re-programmed elsewhere for immigration enforcement, and called it “an illegal freeze.”

She then asked Noem when DHS would unfreeze those funds.

Noem did not answer and instead blamed the Biden administration, and said the previous administration “perverted” how the funds were used.

Murray said she did not think it was “credible that $100 billion is used to break the law.”

“I am very concerned that DHS is now dramatically over-spending funding that Congress has not provided,” Murray said. “We take our responsibility seriously to fund your department and others. We need to have answers, we need to have accountability, and we need to make sure you’re not overspending money that you were not allocated.”

Abrego Garcia deportation

Noem got into a heated exchange with one of the Democrats on the panel, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to speak with wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration has admitted his deportation was an “administrative error.”

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, who was sent initially to brutal CECOT but is now housed in another prison.

Van Hollen asked Noem what DHS has done to bring back Abrego Garcia, who had a 2019 court order barring his return to his home country of El Salvador for fear he would be harmed by gang violence.

Noem did not answer what steps the Trump administration was taking and said that because Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, he is in that nation’s custody and cannot be brought back.

Trump has contradicted his own administration, stating that if he wanted to bring back Agrego Garcia he would, but won’t because he believes Abrego Garcia has gang ties.

While Trump officials like Noem have alleged that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, no evidence has been provided in court and federal Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, called the accusations “hearsay.”

Noem then questioned why Van Hollen was advocating for Abrego Garcia in the first place.

“Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming to me,” she said.

Van Hollen said that he was advocating for due process, which the Trump administration has been accused of skirting in its deportations. A federal judge in Louisiana next week plans to hold a hearing to determine if the Trump administration violated due process in deporting a 2-year-old U.S. citizen and her mother to Honduras.

Murphy also pressed Noem on the issue and asked how she was coordinating with El Salvador for Abrego Garcia’s release.

“There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States,” she said.

Noem then said that even if Abrego Garcia were returned to the U.S., “we would immediately deport him again.”

GOP worried about students, TPS holders

Some Republicans on the panel, including the committee chair, raised concerns with Noem about how the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is affecting students with visas.

“There are so many others who do deserve scrutiny,” said Chairwoman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who said she was worried about students from Canada who attend school in her home state. “But these are dually enrolled Canadian students, and they’ve been crossing the border for years without trouble.”

She said Canadian students are being stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and given intense screenings.

“They have student visas, but they’re being subjected to extensive searches and questioning,” she said to Noem. “I don’t want us to discourage Canadian students from studying at the northern Maine institutions that we have for education.”

Noem said she would look into it.

Alaskan Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised the issue of paperwork not being processed for those with Temporary Protected Status in her state. TPS is granted to those who come from a country that is considered too dangerous or unstable to return to due to war, natural disasters or other instability.

Murkowski said several groups of immigrants in her state with temporary protected status and humanitarian protection are at risk of losing their work protections, such as Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Ukrainians.

“The majority of these folks are just truly valued members of their new community,” Murkowski said. “They’re helping us meet workforce needs and really contributing to the tax base here. They’ve expressed great concern about their status and work authorizations that may be revoked or allowed to expire.”

She said that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not processed TPS or humanitarian protection renewals for up to five months.

Noem said that those with TPS are being looked at, and admitted that some Ukrainians got an erroneous email that notified them their status was revoked.

She said DHS has not made a decision on whether or not to renew TPS for Ukrainians, who were granted the status due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.

“Some of these TPS programs have been in place for many, many years, but the evaluation on why TPS should be utilized and when it can be utilized by a country is the process that the administration is going through,” Noem said.

Last updated 5:06 p.m., May. 8, 2025

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

WASHINGTON — Two federal judges Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelans, limiting the rulings to Colorado and a New York district.

U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Alvin K. Hellerstein found that President Donald Trump’s invocation of the wartime law was likely not valid, because there is no “existence of a ‘war,’ ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion,’” as required by the Alien Enemies Act statute.

A similar order was made by U.S. District Judge for the District of Colorado Charlotte N. Sweeney, who noted the Trump administration likely exceeded the scope of the Alien Enemies Act in its use of it.

Hellerstein, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, also reiterated in his order that anyone in the United States – including those who are not citizens – is entitled to due process.

He noted that the Venezuelan nationals subject to the Alien Enemies Act were deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, CECOT, “with faint hope of process or return.”

“The sweep for removal is ongoing, extending to the litigants in this case and others, thwarted only by order of this and other federal courts,” Hellerstein wrote. “The destination, El Salvador, a country paid to take our aliens, is neither the country from which the aliens came, nor to which they wish to be removed. But they are taken there, and there to remain, indefinitely, in a notoriously evil jail, unable to communicate with counsel, family or friends.”

Two Venezuelan men who feared they would be subjected to the proclamation brought the suit in the Southern District of New York. It’s now a class to cover any Venezuelan potentially subject to the proclamation.

Sweeney, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, also ordered the suit should cover a class of people.

The New York area in which Trump officials would be barred from using the wartime law includes New York City, the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx and Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties.

Multiple rulings against administration

This is the third preliminary injunction granted by federal judges against Trump’s use of the wartime law in a court’s district. The president invoked the Alien Enemies Act to subject for removal any Venezuelan national 14 and older with suspected ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.

Tuesday’s rulings are similar to another out of Texas, where Trump-appointed Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. struck down the Trump administration’s use of the wartime law to deport Venezuelan nationals in the Southern District of Texas.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is at the forefront of challenges against the Trump administration’s use in March of the Alien Enemies Act, praised the preliminary injunction in New York.

“The court joined several others in correctly recognizing the president cannot simply declare that there’s been an invasion and then invoke a wartime authority during peacetime to send individuals to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador without even giving them due process,” said Lee Gelernt, lead ACLU attorney on the case.

The ACLU has filed lawsuits against the use of the wartime law in federal courts in Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, D.C.

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com.

WASHINGTON — Democratic mayors from four major cities Wednesday rejected House Republicans’ accusations they have resisted President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations by limiting cooperation with federal immigration officials.

Democratic mayors called by the GOP to a six-hour House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing were Brandon Johnson of Chicago; Mike Johnston of Denver; Eric Adams of New York; and Michelle Wu of Boston.

All four cities have been subjected to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s initiative to bus migrants without legal status from the southern border to their locales without notice, overwhelming officials.

The hearing on “sanctuary cities” came as House Republicans gear up to move a bill that would strip federal funding for cities and local governments that do not cooperate with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“The idea that these are sanctuary cities that need to be punished is simply a war on urban America,” the top Democrat on the House committee, Gerry Connolly of Virginia, said.

Vow to make criminal referral

Halfway through the hearing, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said she would be referring all four mayors to the U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution, insinuating they were illegally harboring immigrants without legal status.

Luna said the referral for criminal charges is needed because she thinks the mayors are “ideologically misled.” A congressional referral for criminal charges does not require the Justice Department to initiate a prosecution.

“I’m not doing that in an effort to bully you guys, but I do believe that your policies are hurting the American people,” Luna said.

The Department of Justice already filed a civil suit against the city of Chicago and state of Illinois in early February for its “sanctuary laws” that limit cooperation with immigration authorities. Those local laws do not bar federal immigration enforcement.

Democrats also pressed one of the mayors, Adams, about his lawyers’ meetings with DOJ officials, and asked if he made a deal with the Trump administration to have his corruption case dismissed in exchange for greater cooperation in immigration enforcement.

Adams dodged and rebuffed questions from Democrats on the matter and ignored questions as to whether he would step down as New York mayor.

“There’s no deal, no quid pro quo, and I did nothing wrong,” Adams said.

Mass deportations

The hearing was the morning after Trump’s joint address to Congress, where he vowed to carry out mass deportations of millions of people in the United States without permanent legal status.

Republicans grilled the mayors, singling out instances where the death or harm of a U.S. citizen was linked to a person without permanent legal status.

Colorado GOP Rep. Jeff Hurd pressed Denver’s Johnston if he thought the city’s sanctuary policy has “made Denver more vulnerable to crime.”

Johnston said that “even as 42,000 newcomers have arrived in the city over the last 18 months, crime has gone down.”

The other mayors made similar remarks, and pushed back against GOP claims that immigrants increased crime rates in their cities. All the mayors said crime decreased in their cities even with newly arrived migrants.

“We are a safer city since I’ve been in office, (and) crime is down,” Chicago’s Johnson, who has been in office since 2023, said.

Several GOP lawmakers, such as Gary Palmer of Alabama and Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, accused the mayors of thwarting federal law.

Enforcing immigration law is the responsibility of the federal government, and state and local governments can assist, but cooperation with immigration enforcement is voluntary.

Gosar said that Boston’s Wu was building a comprehensive immigration policy on “false premises and false tenets.”

“Respectfully, Congressman, you could pass bipartisan legislation, and that would be comprehensive immigration law,” Wu said. “False narrative is that ‘immigrants in general are criminals’ or ‘immigrants in general cause all sorts of danger and harm.’”

South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace asked the mayors: “Are you all willing to go to jail for violating federal law?”

Mace then asked the mayors if they hate Trump more than they love their country, or whether they love immigrants without legal authorization more than their residents.

Federal funding at risk

Democrats pushed back on the GOP bill, which would pull federal funding from cities that limit cooperation with ICE.

Democratic Rep. Danny Davis of Illinois argued the measure is an overreach of federal authority.

“The bill as drafted infringes on the Constitution (and) balance of power between states and the federal government,” he said, adding it seems like the bill “will cause more harm than help if enacted.”

Missouri Republican Rep. Eric Burlison said the legislation was needed in order “to force these cities into compliance,” through Congress’ power of the purse.

The chair of the Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, asked all the mayors if their cities could be called sanctuary cities.

The mayors said their cities had policies of welcoming all people, regardless of status, but said they still coordinated with ICE if there was a criminal warrant issued for someone without legal status.

“I can tell you, in the city, whenever someone commits a crime, whenever there’s a criminal warrant, we hold them accountable,” Wu said. “If ICE deems that they are dangerous enough to hold, obtain a criminal warrant, and the Boston police will enforce it.”

Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene asked if the mayors would get rid of their sanctuary city policies.

The mayors defended their policies and argued that they were successful in managing their cities.

Questions about Denver incident

Denver’s Johnston was grilled by several Republicans about a recent incident in which a migrant was released whom Denver law enforcement flagged for ICE officials to arrest.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan asked why an ICE detainer, which is a hold in immigration detention for up to 48 hours, was not placed. The lack of a detainer resulted in six ICE officials trying to arrest a man in the parking lot and one agent was injured.

Johnston said that Denver has placed 1,226 ICE detainers and this is the first time an incident has occurred. He said he is meeting with ICE officials to investigate the incident.

“If we need to make adjustments on how we do releases, we’ll do that,” Johnston said.

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Summer Lee argued it’s not realistic for local governments to frequently use ICE detainers, because it leaves “mayors on the hook” for lawsuits on the grounds of 4th Amendment violations by detaining someone without probable cause.

Usually a judge must issue an order to keep someone detained, and ICE detainers circumvent that requirement in order to give immigration officials more time to pick up someone in custody.

A class action lawsuit resulted in changes to ICE’s detainer policy that emphasize that local authorities can’t keep an individual detained strictly for ICE’s purpose, unless there is a neutral process, usually meaning a judge is involved.

“Republicans are putting these mayors between a rock (and a) hard place and the reason that they’re doing this is that Trump is trying to get them to do illegal things,” Lee said. “If they work for ICE, they risk violating their own residents’ constitutional rights and opening themselves up to costly litigation, but if they don’t do Trump’s bidding, they’re being threatened with losing federal funding.”

Benefits of immigration outlined

Democrats tried to highlight the economic benefits of immigration.

Washington state Democratic Rep. Emily Randall said her state is home to more than 1 million immigrants and they are part of various job markets from agriculture to health care.

“We’ve heard from beet farmers and wheat growers and florists, Christmas tree farms, grocers and salal harvesters, that their businesses cannot continue without the support of immigrants,” she said.

She asked the witness tapped by Democrats, David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, about the economic contributions made by immigrants.

Randall specifically asked what the economic impact would be of the president’s mass deportation plans.

“It would be devastating,” Bier said. “You’re looking at an instant recession.”

He said if the roughly 13 million people in the country without legal status were to leave, it would drop the U.S. gross domestic product by 7%.

“That’s well into the trillions of dollars in lost production of goods and services that benefit Americans,” Bier said.

Last updated 6:18 p.m., Mar. 5, 2025

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.