During Thursday’s Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) questioned DHS Secretary. Kristi Noem about the murder of Rachel Morin.
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00:00Madam Secretary, I'd actually like to take a little bit of my time real quick to turn to
00:08an actual Maryland resident. And I believe if we're going to spend that much time talking about
00:14Mr. Abrego Garcia, we need to talk about Rachel Moran. And she was a citizen of Maryland who
00:25was brutally raped and murdered in 2023 by another criminal illegal alien from El Salvador who had
00:32no business being in the United States. May her story and others like it serve as a reminder to
00:40the human cost of unchecked illegal immigration policies, the need to secure our border and the
00:46need to swiftly remove criminal illegal aliens from the United States. Speaking of, let's go back.
00:53Take a look at what President Trump inherited. We talked about this earlier, but when Joe Biden
00:59took office, there were 3.3 million people on the non-detained docket. When President Trump took
01:04office, that number had risen to 7.6 million people on the non-detained docket. When you look at the
01:11docket, the President Biden and his administration spent their entire term simply allowing people and
01:19aliens to cross the border into our communities. Of those who had been given their final orders of
01:26removal, meaning they had their due process, the Biden administration simply sat on their hands
01:32instead of actively working to remove those individuals, which created chaos and unfortunately
01:40criminal opportunities on our interior. Thankfully, we have new leadership at the White House and a
01:46department who will no longer tolerate the subversion of our immigration laws and activities.
01:51I think since we're here to talk about the budget today, that's what I'd like to talk about.
01:55What do you and your department need, the brave men and women who serve alongside you, in order to
02:01secure our border, in order to keep our interior safe from coast to coast, and to continue to make
02:08America a safe, secure, and prosperous place to be?
02:10Well, the Department of Homeland Security is tasked with overseeing 23 different components
02:16that are pretty broad. And it was formed after 9-11 in response to the terrorist attacks to help us
02:23secure our country and everything that's in the interior of our country. The President's budget
02:27request, along with reconciliation package, focus on what some of our greatest threats are that face our
02:33future and our children and grandchildren's ability to grow up here and to have a future. And that is
02:38continuing to secure our border, to make sure we're addressing technology needs that have been
02:43neglected for far too long, get our Coast Guard to the standard to what the missions are requiring them
02:49to be at to be successful, building more wall, more agents for CBP, more ICE agents and beds so that we can
02:58remove illegal criminals out of this country and dangerous individuals that are threatening our public
03:03safety. And then also going forward and looking at how we conduct operations on training our law
03:09enforcement officers, how we can put CISA back on mission at focusing on cyber security. The requests going
03:16forward focus in those areas and TSA so that we have the technology upgrades that we need to really make
03:23sure that we are doing due diligence to secure our country and the systems that help run our
03:28critical infrastructure.
03:29I really appreciate that. And I'm hoping that you continue to work on what you need to move forward as it develops.
03:38Yeah.
03:41This country safe. On that, your predecessor actually refused to call what was going on at the border a crisis.
03:48Um, it is clear that's exactly what was happening. You also have shown that coming in, we did not need
03:54any new legislation to actually secure the border. Um, you have taken action. President Trump has taken
04:00action to secure it. I mean, creating a space that we haven't seen in decades. You've talked about a
04:07number of things. One of the things you just mentioned was a border wall. Can you talk about the construction
04:12of a border wall and what that would do for the men and women of CBP and overall DHS? I know that we are
04:19a nation of immigrants. We're proud of that. We're also a nation of law and lawlessness has to stop.
04:24And I believe that anybody on this dais that locks their door at night should understand the need for
04:30a border wall. The American people should have that level of security when they go to sleep at night.
04:35So can you talk about the importance of that and kind of how you see that unfolding?
04:40The, we have currently over 700 miles of border wall, um, on the southern border and infrastructure
04:47that is there, um, operating today. Since President Trump has been in office, we've constructed another
04:5377 miles that is in place. That is an inclusion of steel bollard wall that has been built, but also
05:00temporary, uh, wall that has been put forward, uh, with concertina wire and panels. And then also
05:06we have, um, some waterborne, um, buoys that are being utilized as well. We have 11 contracts that
05:12have been allocated to continue building infrastructure and then also five more that
05:17are pending to be allocated to build more miles to have that infrastructure there to help secure
05:22vulnerable areas. Now the border wall will look different based on what the topography is and the
05:27geography is of the area. So there's some areas on the northern border and the southern border and out in
05:32our maritime, uh, infrastructure that we need that will have technology. Um, it'll utilize, um, aerostar
05:40systems, radio frequencies, satellite systems. Those upgrades just simply haven't been made or prioritized
05:46under the last administration and need to be done. So we will use a combination for what's appropriate
05:52out there for the topography and working with the local states, um, and tribal areas to make sure that it's
05:58something that secures our country, but also is something that they can help support and secure
06:02as well. Thank you for that commitment. Vice Chair Murray.