Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before Senate : NPR

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem holds a press conference surrounded by evidence of drug seizures at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in February 2026 in Otay Mesa, California.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is expected to testify before members of the Senate on Tuesday, amid a pause in funding for her agency and increased scrutiny of her leadership.

The Department of Homeland Security was shut down for nearly a month after lawmakers failed to negotiate a budget deal to fund the agency and agree on changes to how immigration agents operate.

Noem is expected to explain to lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee how the shutdown affects ordinary Americans, including making air travel more difficult as Transportation Security Administration employees work without pay.

Watch Noem testify at 9 a.m. ET Tuesday:

But the hearing will likely focus on how Noem continued President Trump’s mass deportation efforts during his second term. DHS is the agency that oversees both Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Republicans requested a hearing just days after CBP agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis in January. Pretti is the second U.S. citizen killed by federal immigration agents in the city following the death of Renee Macklin Good at the hands of an ICE agent earlier this month.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said before Noem’s testimony that he looked forward to hearing how she would respond to the violence.

“Let me be clear, one death is too many. But officers should never be threatened or harmed while enforcing our laws. And there is a clear difference between conduct protected by the First Amendment and unlawful obstruction,” Grassley said in his prepared remarks. “From my perspective, I believe that respect for immigration rules and dignity are not mutually exclusive.”

Legal experts told NPR that much of the activity the government considers obstruction – such as observing and filming immigration agents – is protected by the Constitution.

Some Democratic senators lamented the five-week gap between Pretti’s death and the hearing.

“With all the violence and deaths involving DHS, the Secretary of State is apparently in no rush to account for her mishandling of this national crisis. And she expects us to approve her record budget in the meantime,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement in late January.

Noem has faced bipartisan criticism over how her agency handled the immigration surge in Minnesota, where about 3,000 federal agents were deployed before a recent drawdown. The immigration operation has created an atmosphere of intense fear and chaos in the state.

Many immigrant families sheltered in place for weeks, fearful of leaving their homes, while foreign-born U.S. citizens carried their passports, amid reports of widespread racial profiling by immigration officials. For weeks, immigration officials also deployed aggressive tactics against Minnesotans who protested and observed their actions.

Regarding the shutdown, Democrats came up with a list of 10 demands to change the behavior of immigration officers, but it was difficult to find consensus. Some requests, such as requiring immigration officers to wear body cameras, have bipartisan support. But Republican lawmakers have pushed back on other demands, such as banning officers from wearing masks to conceal their identities. Republicans say it would make it easier for people to harass federal agents.

Noem’s leadership questioned

Following the Minnesota shootings, some Republican senators called for Noem’s resignation, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is not running for re-election but serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Other Republicans decried Noem’s calling Pretti a “domestic terrorist” immediately after the shooting, before an investigation into the killing was underway. Noem used similar language about Macklin Good’s death.

Since then, an initial report from CBP’s surveillance arm has contradicted the account of Pretti’s death. And last month, the heads of ICE, CBP and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, another DHS agency, also testified before the House and Senate and refused to support Noem’s account of Pretti’s death.

Under Noem’s leadership, DHS has been at the epicenter of the Trump administration’s ambitious efforts to detain and deport a million people living in the United States without legal status each year. During Trump’s first year in office, the agency says it deported more than 675,000 people.

According to an analysis by the Deportation Data Project, a coalition of academics and lawyers that track and publish data on immigration enforcement, the number of expulsions from within the country, away from the border, increased almost fivefold during the first nine months of Trump’s second term. The administration has roughly tripled the number of detention beds for people arrested nationwide, the analysis also found.

Noem also oversaw a hiring spree aimed at recruiting thousands of new ICE agents, leading some immigrant advocates to question the quality of training those agents receive. It also allowed CBP, an agency with a history of excessive use of force, to play a greater role in enforcing the president’s immigration agenda throughout the interior of the country.

To some extent, the DHS immigration program has been reined in by the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. Federal district judges have blocked the agency from using its war powers to expedite deportations, for example, and ordered some deportees returned to the United States.

Noem, the former South Dakota governor, won Senate confirmation last year as a strong supporter of Trump’s immigration agenda. But her tenure also faced questions about how she handled other agency responsibilities, including her handling of national disaster relief and resources through FEMA.