Chris Murphy Absolutely Loses It On DHS Sec. Kristi Noem Over Libya Deportation Plans

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During Thursday’s Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) spoke about DHS Secretary. Kristi Noem's record in her role.

Transcript

00:00Madam Chair, Madam Secretary, thank you for being here. I'm sorry that I missed

00:04your call yesterday. I look forward to working closely with you. I say this with

00:08seriousness and respect, but your department is out of control. You are

00:13spending like you don't have a budget. You're on the verge of running out of

00:17money for the fiscal year. You are illegally refusing to spend funds that

00:21have been authorized by this Congress and appropriated by this committee. You

00:24are ignoring the immigration laws of this nation, implementing a brand new

00:27immigration system that you have invented that has little relation to the

00:31statutes that you require, that you are commanded to follow, as spelled out in

00:35your oath of office. You are routinely violating the rights of immigrants who

00:38may not be citizens, but whether you like it or not, they have constitutional and

00:41statutory rights when they reside in the United States. Your agency acts as if

00:46laws don't matter, as if the election gave you some mandate to violate the

00:50Constitution and the laws passed by this Congress. It did not give you that mandate.

00:54You act as if your disagreement with the law or even the public's disagreement with

00:58the law is relevant and gives you the ability to create your own law. It does

01:02not give you that ability. Let's start with your spending. You are on track to

01:07trigger the Anti-Deficiency Act. That means you are going to spend more money

01:10than you have been allocated by Congress. This is a rare occurrence and it is wildly

01:15illegal. Your agency will be broke by July, over two months before the end of the

01:21fiscal year. You may not think that Congress has provided enough money to ICE,

01:25but the Constitution and the federal law does not allow you to spend more money

01:29than you have been given or to invent money. And this obsession with spending

01:34at the border, as the chairwoman mentioned, has left the country

01:39unprotected elsewhere. The security threats to the United States are higher, not

01:44lower, before than when before Trump came to office. To fund the border, you have

01:48illegally gutted spending for cyber security. As we speak, Russian and Chinese hackers are

01:53having a field day attacking our nation. You have withdrawn funds for disaster prevention.

01:59Storms are going to kill more people in this country because of your illegal withholding

02:02of these funds. Your myopia about the border, fueled by President Trump's prejudice against

02:07people who speak a different language, has shattered many of this country's most important

02:12defenses. Now let's talk about the impoundments. When Congress appropriates funds for a specific

02:18purpose, the administration has no discretion as to whether to spend or not spend that money,

02:23unless you go through a very specific process with this committee. Let me give you two of many

02:29instances of this illegal impoundment. The first is a shelter and services program. Senator Britt may

02:34want to zero that account out, but that account is funded and it was funded in a bipartisan way. You

02:39don't like the program. Your policy is to treat migrants badly. I think that's abhorrent, but it doesn't matter

02:46that you don't like the program. You cannot cancel spending in this program and you cannot use the

02:51funds as you have to fund other things like ICE. You have also canceled citizenship and integration

02:58grants, which help lawful permanent residents become citizens, helping them take the citizenship test.

03:05I know your goal is to try to make life as hard as possible for immigrants, but that goal is not

03:10broadly shared by the American public. That's why Congress in a bipartisan way for decades has funded

03:16this program to help immigrants in this country become citizens. Now let's talk about why encounters

03:23at the southern border are down so much. This is clearly going to be your primary talking point today.

03:29You will tell us that it represents a success, but the primary reason why encounters are down is because

03:34you are brazenly violating the law every hour of every day. You are refusing to allow people showing

03:42up at the southern border to apply for asylum. I acknowledge that you don't believe that people

03:48should be able to apply for asylum, but you don't get to choose that. The White House doesn't get to

03:52choose that. The law requires you to process people who are showing up at the border and who claim asylum.

03:58Why? Because our asylum law is a bipartisan commitment, an effort to correct for our nation's

04:05unconscionable decision to deny entry to Jews to this country who are being hunted and killed by the

04:10Nazis. Our nation, Republicans and Democrats, decided, wrote it into law, that we would not repeat that

04:18horror ever again, and thus we would allow for people who were fleeing terror and torture to come here,

04:24arrive at the border and make a case for asylum. Finally, let's talk about these disappearances.

04:31In an autocratic society, people who the regime does not like are people who are protesting the regime.

04:36They are just often picked up off the street, spirited away, sometimes to open-ended detention,

04:40sometimes they're never seen again. What you are doing, both the individuals who have legal rights to

04:45stay here, like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, or students who are just protesting Trump's policies, is immoral.

04:53And to follow the theme, it is illegal. You have no right to deport a student visa holder with no due

04:59process, simply because they have spoken in a way that offends the president. You can't remove migrants

05:05who a court has given humanitarian protection from removal. Now, reports suggest that you are planning

05:12to remove immigrants with no due process and send them to prisons in Libya. Libya is in the middle of a

05:19civil war. It is subject to a level four travel advisory, meaning we tell American citizens never

05:27to travel to Libya. We don't have an embassy there because it is not safe for our diplomats. Sending

05:33migrants with pending asylum claims into a war zone just because it's cruel is so deeply disturbing.

05:41Listen, I understand that my Republican colleagues on this committee don't view the policy the way

05:48that I do. My Republican colleagues don't share my level of concern for the way that this administration

05:55treats immigrants. That's fine. But what I don't understand is why we don't have consensus in the

06:01Senate and on this committee on the decision by this administration to impound the spending that

06:10we have decided together to allocate in defense of this nation. We as an appropriations committee,

06:15we work interminable hours to write and pass a budget. This budget is really hard to write and pass.

06:23And so we make ourselves irrelevant when we allow the administration to ignore what we have decided.

06:28And then when we look the other way, when the administration rounds up immigrants who are

06:31here illegally and have committed no offenses worthy of detainment, we also do potential

06:37irreversible damage to the Constitution. These should not be partisan concerns, destroying the power

06:43of Congress, eroding individuals constitutional rights. This should matter to both parties.

06:49Madam Secretary, thank you for being here and I look forward to your testimony.

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