|
Read highlights from the hearing:
On reaffirming support for DHS, ICE, and Law Enforcement:
Rep. Pfluger: Secretary, despite even members on this committee who have called our law enforcement and ICE and DHS, border patrol, and other agents names and slandered them, I support you, and I support what you're doing to secure the homeland.
On Texas Border Reimbursements:
Rep. Pfluger: The Working Families Tax Act allocated 13 and a half billion dollars to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to reimburse states for the cost of the Biden-Harris administration's open border policies. No state suffered more than Texas from fentanyl, drug and human trafficking, and violent crime. Stress on local emergency response services caused substantial damage to my district, to our state, to my constituents, to people who live and work in Texas. In response, our state launched Operation Lone Star to secure the border when the Biden administration abdicated its responsibility to do that. We built miles of border wall, we had other barriers, and we deployed state troopers and National Guard to deter the invasion. We suffered during this time period, which cost our state over $11 billion, and so as part of the Working Families Tax Act, we allocated 13 and a half billion to reimburse those states. Last month, along with our senators, I led the Republican Texas delegation in sending a letter to you and Attorney General Bondi highlighting this and requesting that the state of Texas be fully reimbursed, and I wanted to get a status on that reimbursement.
Secretary Noem: Thank you. And we still, to this day, remain incredibly grateful to the state of Texas for its leadership during that time. That was challenging times, devastating times, for what we saw happening down there. Texas stepped up in a way that was absolutely incredible. So yes, those dollars are being formulated and allocated. If you remember, many states deployed their National Guard down there. I was the governor of South Dakota at that time, and my National Guard was deployed down there as well. So, reconciling the costs for every single state and looking at that allocation, we're making sure we're doing due diligence to make sure that it's appropriated correctly.
Rep. Pfluger: And just to be clear, I want to make sure that that money does come in the form of the reimbursement to Texas.
Secretary Noem: That's what we're working with the White House on doing, sir.
On Terror Threats:
Rep. Pfluger: So, when it comes to what Director Kent talked about, these 18,000 people, can you give us an idea of who these people are and what type of threat they pose to us?
Secretary Noem: I would say, sir, that we face the terrorists that we've faced for years in ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, individuals that are here that are radicalized, but also we face the cartels as they've infiltrated our country under the last administration. Their proliferation of human trafficking, drugs, and violence. Also going after Tren De Aragua as well, MS-13, those individuals are still a very real, clear danger every day on the streets, and we encounter them, arrest them and deport them, and bring them to justice each and every day. Beyond that, sir, you even have gangs in cities that are localized, that are terrorist organizations. The Latin Kings in Chicago are absolutely terrorists to their communities, and we work every day to make sure that we're protecting those communities. So I could not prioritize one over another, because they're all killers. They're all killers, and they all are destroying families each and every day.
Rep. Pfluger: For both you and Director Kent, do terrorist organizations around the world, such as ISIS, al Qaeda, and others, still have an intent to attack America, to attack our homeland, and to utilize every method?
Secretary Noem: Absolutely, our intelligence and our information that we deal with every single day is addressing those threats on our streets here in the United States.
Rep. Pfluger: Director Kent, can you give us an idea of what those tactics, techniques, and procedures could be that we need to stay alert of?
Director Kent: Honestly, the attacks of October 7, the decentralized and just barbaric nature of that is the new terrorist playbook. They're not looking necessarily for a spectacular attack like we had on 9/11, but rather targets of opportunity, like we tragically saw with the terrorist attack in Washington, DC. These smaller cells or even individual operatives taking action, that's what has us very concerned, combined with just the sheer volume.
|
