Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Noem, as Secretary of Homeland Security, you oversaw Operation Metro Search. Is that correct?
Yes, as Secretary, I oversee ICE and CBP and HSI officers that were there doing their work.
1,000 ICE agents, border patrol to Minnesota, outnumbering our 10 metro police departments, outnumbering by three to one the number of sworn police officers in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Is that correct?
We were working to do targeted operations against criminal illegal aliens, and we needed to do that in a safe manner to make sure that we can ensure the safety of our law enforcement officers.
My constituents, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed. They should be alive today. In fact, in one month in the city of Minneapolis, when you look at the three fatalities that were the result of shootings, two of three were committed by federal agents. Are you aware of that?
So your agents, not only did their actions result in the deaths of two innocent American citizens, but they repeatedly violated my constituents' First Amendment rights to assemble. You say you believe in the Second Amendment right to bear arms, but Alex Pretti was criticized repeatedly by officials in the administration for having a lawful permit to carry and having a gun. Your agents violated the Fourth Amendment rights of my constituents by ramming through the doors of innocent people's homes, innocent citizens' homes, without any kind of a warrant, and violated the Fifth Amendment right to due process. So as I've shared with my colleagues, if you believe in federalism, in freedom, and in liberty, you should be horrified by what the Department of Homeland Security did in Minnesota. So my first question is, having spoken to Mr. Homan, what is the exact number of DHS agents still in Minnesota?
Well, I believe that there is still close to 650 there, counting the investigators that are there working to get to the bottom of the unprecedented fraud that has been found in the Medicaid funding.
As you know, I am all in on prosecuting fraud. I put in place the U.S. Attorney who exposed the fraud under the Biden administration and brought the bulk of the prosecutions, and also recommended to Mr. Blanche that Joe Thompson be the acting U.S. Attorney who led those prosecutions and now has left the office because the Department of Justice asked him and many others to investigate Renee Good's wife instead of doing their jobs, doing fraud. So what I want to know is, when are you going to get down to the original footprint as promised to us?
We're continuing to work at that, although those investigators will continue to stay there to get to the bottom of that fraud to make sure that those vulnerable people that rely on those programs actually get services from those federal dollars that are spent, that it's not stolen by criminals and used by individuals to enrich themselves and send it out of the country.
Secretary Noem, are you aware that agents bashed in the door of a U.S. citizen, a 70-year-old with no criminal record?
I can't speak to the specifics of that.
Did you see the photos of that man being dragged out of his house in Crocs and in his underwear?
Do you believe that he was involved in fraud?
I do not know the status of that investigation.
Are you aware that he is the son of a beloved nurse that treated our soldiers in Vietnam?
I believe that we have laws in this country that need to be enforced and need to be applied equally to everyone.
Did they have a judicial warrant when they rammed through an American citizen's store?
Our law enforcement officers follow the same protocols and procedures that all law enforcement does.
Are you aware that he tried to show his identification to show that he was an American citizen and they didn't want to see it?
