DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recites the Pledge of Allegiance before the House Judiciary Committee, Tuesday, March 3, 2026.Tom Williams/AP
In her second day of hearings before Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refused during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday to acknowledge that federal agents have and continue to violently detain US citizens in Minnesota and across the country. Forget about that, Noem suggested—blame Democrats.
“Today [Democrats] are defending citizens because they know they shouldn’t be putting illegal aliens in front of citizens,” she said in response to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). “They realize that when they’re fighting for people who shouldn’t be in this country to begin with, that’s a losing statement with the American people.”
The observation came after Lofgren showed Noem three videos of federal agents forcibly dragging US citizens out of their cars and homes without judicial warrants or any suggestion of cause.
Lofgren asked Noem: “Do you train agents not to do that, or are they trained to do that?”
“If an individual doesn’t respond to verbal commands [from agents], then they go to soft techniques,” Noem said. She also addressed the lack of judicial warrants in DHS arrests, reiterating the agency’s position that it can administer its own warrants, claiming that the Supreme Court has recognized their validity.
Lofgren disagreed and said arrests of US citizens with only administrative warrants violate the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
“We’re fighting for American citizens, Madam Secretary, because your ICE agents shot them in the face and killed them,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), mentioning by name Renée Good and Alex Pretti, two US citizens who were killed in January by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Just hours after both killings, and before any investigation, Noem claimed that Good and Pretti had committed acts of “domestic terrorism,” and continued to do so after video evidence contradicted the assertion.
“Were Renée Good and Alex Pretti domestic terrorists?” Raskin asked. Noem did not answer the question, but she later agreed with Raskin that it is unlawful for federal agents to shoot and kill an individual for engaging in peaceful protest, for filming them on a public street, for legally carrying a holstered firearm, or for driving away from them.
“I hope you would rethink what you said about two good, honest, faithful American citizens and what that means to their families,” Raskin stated.
But what my colleague Inae Oh wrote the day after federal agents killed Good continues to be true: “a disdain for facts” and a systemic defense of “ICE officers as they detain, terrorize, sometimes with gunfire, and then brag about it.”
Good and Pretti’s deaths were “an absolute tragedy” and there are still “ongoing investigations,” Noem claimed. But the secretary isn’t rethinking her other statements—she’s doubling down on them.