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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last week was historic in the Senate Chamber. For the first time, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security came and appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She had been in the position for almost a year and had never agreed to publicly appear and account for her mismanagement of that Department until last week--1 day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I serve as ranking Democrat, and the second day before the House Judiciary Committee for a similar hearing.

When the smoke had cleared, President Trump announced, via a social media post, that he was firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The reason for the decision was obvious after her 2 days of testimony and 2 days of refusal to respond to important questions.

Under Kristi Noem's disastrous stewardship, the Department was devoid of any moral compass or respect for the rule of law. The city of Chicago was one of the first victims of Secretary Noem's political theater campaign with her so-called Operation Midway Blitz. Instead of targeting the ``worst of the worst,'' as the President has frequently announced, Secretary Noem unleashed masked, militarized immigration enforcement officers onto our streets.

These officers detained American citizens, green card holders, and community members with no prior criminal records in violent, indiscriminate, and unconstitutional roundups.

Do you remember the President's pledge at rally after rally? We are going after ``the worst of the worst.'' We are going into the neighborhoods of America. We are going to find the terrorists and the rapists and the murderers and the criminally insane who managed to sneak across our border. We will find them, and we will send them out of the country or to jail, one or the other.

What does their record show so far with that project and campaign under Secretary Noem and President Trump? They found that only one out of seven of the people who have been detained and deported--one out of seven--has any kind of serious criminal record. One out of seven.

So for their best efforts and for billions of dollars in recordbreaking amounts, DHS, with these Agencies, has more money than the U.S. Marine Corps, more money than the FBI. How are they doing? If they were batters in Major League Baseball and hit the ball one out of seven times, they would be not only in the minors, but they would be out of the game. One out of seven people deported has any kind of serious criminal record.

Her roving patrols shot a Chicago resident and citizen, Marimar Martinez, five times. Marimar Martinez is a miracle--``el milagro''-- lucky to be alive. What did she do that was so dangerous--worst of the worst--that invoked the reaction from the ICE and CBP agents? She was taking a box of extra clothing to her church on a Saturday morning, driving through the streets of Chicago--Kedzie Avenue to be specific-- when she was stopped by these agents of DHS.

When it was all over, they had shot at her car as it departed and struck her with five different bullets. Imagine, she is alive today to tell about it. She miraculously survived, but Renee Good and Alex Pretti of Minneapolis were shot by immigration agents there and did not survive.

That is why we are in a conversation with the Republicans about changing the procedures of ICE and CBP when it comes to this Presidential campaign. To think that innocent American citizens are being shot and killed in our streets is unacceptable, unthinkable, unimaginable, but it is a fact, and that is why we are standing for the premise that these agents have to be held to similar standards that police and troopers are held to all across the United States.

How many of your State troopers are wearing a mask today to go out and do their job? In Illinois, none; in your State, probably the same. How about your local police? Are they wearing masks? Do they have video cameras on?

The basics of policing that we accept as professionalism have been rejected by the Department of Homeland Security. We are trying to establish a standard for these enforcement officers that is comparable to the standard of your police and State troopers and deputy sheriffs. That is it.

When I talk to law enforcement leaders in Illinois, they shake their heads and say: How many of our law enforcement officers are wearing a mask every day? None--virtually none.

Yet they are insisting that these ICE agents and CBP agents wear a mask. They say it is for their own safety. Let me tell you what is for their safety: to have the confidence of the people you are trying to protect. That, when it comes to safety, is the standard we should have. Wearing a mask and no identification does not instill confidence in the body politic.

Secretary Noem wasted no time in labeling all three of the victims that I referred to--Marimar Martinez, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti--as domestic terrorists, misleading the American public and causing immeasurable pain to their families. They were not domestic terrorists or anything like it. Yet she said it in each of the three instances.

So last week when Secretary Noem finally appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, my colleagues and I sought to hold her to account. She proceeded, unfortunately, to lie under oath multiple times, including saying DHS followed court orders and had not detained American citizens, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

But Noem's abysmal track record wasn't enough to spur the President into action. What was the tipping point? Well, it turned out she had a multimillion-dollar--in fact, over $143 million--self-promotional campaign which showed Kristi Noem riding horses at Mount Rushmore while wearing cowboy shoes and outfits, talking about how tough she was. Well, it turned out President Trump got wind of it and said to one of the Senators: She spent more money on her self-promotion campaign than I spent to get reelected.

Think about that.

As we started asking questions about this TV promotion campaign, it turned out it involved some firms she had been doing business with in her home State. Too many questions.

Donald Trump announced that our colleague from Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin will succeed Kristi Noem. We will find out how he plans to lead the Department in this perilous moment as the Senate exercises its authority under the Constitution to provide advice and consent on this nomination.

I want to make it clear for the record what happened last week. Senator Patty Murray of the State of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, came to the floor and made a unanimous consent request that we fund every other Agency under DHS, as we had agreed in a bipartisan manner, and work solely on ICE and CBP to come up with an agreement and establish some reasonable policing standards.

Who objected to funding the rest of this Department? The Republican leader. So he had his chance--and I think he will have it again, I hope, soon--to restore the funding for these critical Agencies at this moment and give us enough time--we certainly have enough time--to work out an agreement on the procedures when it comes to ICE and CBP.

It won't be unreasonable to ask Senator Mullin, if he pursues this appointment by the President, what he will do to change this Department in those critical areas. What does he think about shooting innocent Americans in the street? What does he think about his officers wearing masks? What does he think about them carrying videos cameras to record exactly what happens at these scenes? What does he think about someone bashing down the front door of your home without a judicial warrant, without the permission or the approval of a judge, in accordance with just basic policing across America? These are fundamental questions.

The Republican leader said earlier: We can do something this week.

Yes, we should. We have been waiting for the White House to pitch in in a constructive way. Now is the moment to do it. I certainly hope we can achieve it this week, as Senator Thune promised.

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