Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) confronted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, pressing her on the deportation of DACA recipients and the needless cruelty of the administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
Durbin asked Noem about familiarity with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and its requirements, including criminal background checks for participants. He then cited data provided by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) showing that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 261 DACA holders last year and deported 86 of them.
He described the case of a longtime DACA recipient who was arrested at her green-card appointment and deported to Mexico within 24 hours, despite having passed the background checks required for DACA eligibility. “Why have you deported dozens of DACA holders who passed criminal background checks?” Durbin pressed.
Noem responded that DHS follows applicable laws in handling detentions and deportations. She dodged the question by claiming that she was not familiar with the specific case Durbin mentioned but would “look into it.” Durbin countered that if individuals who complied with DACA’s requirements were deported, it suggested a violation of the law.
Durbin Grills Noem For Deporting Parent Of Patient With Terminal Cancer
The Illinois Democrat, who serves as ranking member on the committee, then turned to statistics from President Donald Trump’s first term, noting that 85% of the roughly 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE during that period had no violent criminal record. He contrasted that figure with Trump’s repeated campaign pledge to only target “the worst of the worst.”
Noem disputed the framing, arguing that the 85% figure excluded nonviolent but serious offenses such as DUI, embezzlement, theft, and drug-related crimes. When those crimes are included, she said, the percentage of detainees with criminal records rises significantly—to between 65% and 70%—not counting unlawful presence itself. Durbin asked her to provide documentation supporting that claim, and she said she would.
The exchange grew more personal when Durbin recounted the story of Ruben Torres, who he said was arrested at a Home Depot in suburban Illinois despite pleading with agents to let him remain with his daughter, who was dying of cancer. Torres was deported for two weeks before returning for a court hearing, Durbin said, and his daughter died shortly afterward. “Is that really necessary?” Durbin asked. “Was he a violent criminal?”
Noem replied that DHS enforces the laws passed by Congress and signed into statute. Individuals with final removal orders, she said, are subject to the legal process, and the department follows that process. If lawmakers disagree with the law, she added, they should change it.
Durbin responded that efforts at comprehensive immigration reform had been blocked in the House of Representatives. Having nothing left to say but her rehearsed talking points, Noem maintained that DHS’s role is to uphold existing law, stating that a nation that does not follow its laws is “no nation at all.”
