Homeland Security Secretary testifies to House of Representatives
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was interrupted by protesters holding anti-ICE signs during her testimony before the House on threats to national security
(December 11, 2025 - Pool / CNN)
WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNN & AP) – Secretary of Homeland Security Kirsti Noem was interrupted by protesters as she began her testimony at the start of the hearing on Thursday, December 11, 2025.
House Democratic identified members of the audience they said had family members who had been improperly treated by the immigration system.
Noem said she would review the cases of several called out by Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island. One, a combat veteran, appeared on a screen via a video call. Magaziner said the Purple Heart recipient had been deported earlier this year.
“You don’t seem to know how to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys,” Magaziner said to Noem.
In part of her testimony, Noem defended the cancelation of billions of dollars in mitigation grants administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying the grants had been “weaponized to fund the Green New Deal and for climate change.”
The Trump administration in April canceled $3.6 billion in grants under the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, created under the first Trump administration to help communities harden infrastructure to mitigate damage from climate disasters.
Noem said FEMA is “deploying resources two times faster on average, than in history,” though a policy that she personally approve DHS expenditures of $100,000 or more has been widely criticized for slowing deployment of FEMA services and dollars.
Noem linked the seizure of an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast to the Trump administration’s efforts to push back on “a regime that is systematically … flooding our country with deadly drugs.” She said Trump administration officials had seized “enough lethal doses of cocaine to kill 177 million Americans.”
On Wednesday, Trump said the United States had seized the tanker as tensions mount with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has broadly justified a regional military buildup and a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean as necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the U.S.
Secretary Noem left the hearing early.
Noem said she had to go to another meeting of a council that is offering suggestions on how to reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
As she walked out, Julie Johnson, a Democrat from Texas who was slated to question the secretary next, joked: “I’m just going to take the position that she was scared of my questions.”
As Noem walked out of the room, protesters trailed her down the hallway yelling “Shame on you!
