'Serious questions' as Noem’s DHS faces GOP senator’s sweeping investigation

Secretary Kristi Noem‘s Department of Homeland Security is facing a sweeping investigation launched by Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, who announced that he has “serious questions” about how her agencies are operating — including how they are treating U.S. citizens — in his home state of North Carolina and in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Hill, which reported on Tillis’ investigation, noted that his “letter does not mention the deaths of Renee Good or Alex Pretti after they were shot by immigration agents in Minneapolis, but it does ask for a sweeping data production on every ICE interaction in the field, including with U.S. citizens.”

Senator Tillis has recently called for Noem’s resignation or ouster.

“What she’s done in Minnesota should be disqualifying. She should be out of a job,” he said in late January, describing her performance as “amateurish.”

“I believe that Noem is out of her depth,” Tillis said just one day later. “She is not competent to run this organization.”

On Wednesday, Tillis responded to a rebuke of him by President Donald Trump, who said the Senator from North Carolina was a “loser.”

“That obviously qualifies me to be the Homeland Security secretary,” he told CNBC.

In his letter to Secretary Noem, Tillis wrote that he was seeking “clarification” on “multiple public reports” from North Carolina that “allege that U.S. citizens were detained, subject to force, and experienced damage to personal property.”

“Local reporting describes, among other incidents, a U.S. citizen detained twice in a single day, with the second encounter involving agents shattering the individual’s vehicle window and forcibly removing him from the car. Other reports describe an 18-year-old U.S. citizen detained at his workplace in Cary, North Carolina, and later dropped off at a different location, where CBP agents tossed his belongings,” he wrote, asking if they “reflect substantiated incidents.”

Tillis also shared similar concerns in Minneapolis, Minnesota, “where DHS enforcement actions reportedly involved U.S. citizens, use of force, reliance on administrative warrants, and unclear predication for initial engagements.”

“Taken together, these events point to a broader transparency and accountability gap in DHS interior enforcement operations that this Committee has a responsibility to address.”

Tillis’s sweeping demand calls for “all encounter-level data for DHS interior enforcement operations conducted in North Carolina and Minneapolis, including all stops, detentions, questioning, searches, releases, uses of force, property damage incidents, and encounters involving U.S. citizens,” among other items.

He noted that his “requests apply to all DHS components engaged in interior enforcement activities.”

Tillis also asked for training materials governing “obligations with respect to constitutional protections for U.S. citizens and lawful residents and describe how compliance is assessed and enforced.”

And he called for DHS policies “addressing entry into private residences based solely on administrative warrants, including how compliance with the Fourth Amendment is assessed, enforced, and reviewed in practice.”