For Immediate Release // Please Excuse Cross Posting
Wednesday, May 15th, 2025
Contact: Palmira Figueroa, 425-301-2764; pfigueroa@ndlon.org
LOS ANGELES, May 15 — The Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, appeared before the Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday and stuck to her message: Give me more money so I can keep breaking the law.
The Democrats, who are in the minority, tried to get her to face facts and admit her lies.
Would Noem say whether the President had lied about Kilmar Abrego Garcia by displaying a fake photo of his hand with “MS-13” superimposed over his knuckles?
Had she done anything to learn whether Andry Hernández Romero – the Venezuelan makeup artist who disappeared into El Salvador’s CECOT prison without due process – is alive or dead? Would she lift a finger, make a phone call, do anything to answer that basic question?
She had not and would not. She responded that the legislators should ask the El Salvadorean government.
Did she care that “countless international students had their visas revoked without due process, without warning, and without any regard for how this would devastate their lives?”
She did not.
And was she asking for more funding so DHS can “disappear more people off our streets with no due process and ship them to a foreign notorious prison that everyday looks more like a concentration camp where basic human rights are violated?”
The answer was an obvious yes.
The following is a statement from Pablo Alvarado, Co-Executive Director of NDLON:
“The Committee Democrats questioned the Secretary. They challenged her about truth, decency and the law. But when an adversary shows no sense of shame, no basic humanity in the face of injustice and cruelty, the ordinary processes of government, of legislative oversight and accountability, are twisted out of shape.
“Following the usual procedures, like committee hearings, to challenge people like Noem, who deal in absurdity and lawlessness, may seem pointless and useless. It can seem surreal, and like nothing is working.
“But like some lawmakers on Wednesday, we all have to keep on defending the truth against lies. We can’t stop. We have to show up, and we can’t give up. We have to hold on to reality and to justice. We have to keep telling the truth about Kilmar, Andry and thousands of others who have been seized and disappeared. The President, the DHS secretary and other nativist and ultra right extremist followers of their regime will keep telling lies and using their power over the innocent and vulnerable. But they do not have power over the truth, and they do not have power over the people.
“We have to keep fighting, as one people, against fear and despair. Because only the people save the people. Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo.”
You can see the questioning by Rep. Eric Swalwell here.
Rep. Benny Thompson here.
Rep. Seth Magaziner here.
Rep. LaMonica McIver here.
Rep. Tim Kennedy here.
Rep. Robert Garcia here.
