WASHINGTON D.C. — This week, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) led a hearing to examine the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget, featuring testimony from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

In the hearing, members and Secretary Noem honored law enforcement as part of National Police Week and examined the Trump administration’s restoration of the rule of law. Through enhanced DHS partnerships across the executive branch and all levels of law enforcement, as well as removing the public safety threats who entered during the Biden-Harris administration, President Trump and Secretary Noem have begun a new era for homeland security––starting at our borders. Read the Committee’s newest Border Brief factsheet on the April U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data here.

In the hearing, Secretary Noem reaffirmed DHS’ commitment to examining and refocusing agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Members and Secretary Noem assessed how both agencies have experienced inefficiencies, mission creep, and departmental failures that detracted from their core mission. Read and watch highlights of the hearing below.

In Secretary Noem’s opening statement, she discussed the steps DHS has taken to secure America’s borders and outlined the department’s numerous other priorities in the homeland security mission:

“Under President Trump and his leadership, we have already delivered for the American people a drastic turn around in homeland security from the southern border to our Coast Guard to cyberspace––and we’re just getting started… It is a testament to the incredible work done by the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security. The secure border has allowed Border Patrol to zero in on fighting cartels and all of their illicit activities.”

“We have the FEMA Review Council, which will be doing its work to make recommendations to the White House. We are also addressing cybersecurity, making sure that CISA’s back on mission at protecting the homeland. The Coast Guard is the only U.S. military branch under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland security––we’re making sure they have the resources and the vision to lead and be the point of the spear in the future.”

THE BORDER:

In his opening statement, Chairman Green discussed the contrast between the Biden-Harris administration’s border crisis and the Trump administrations focus on enforcing federal immigration laws:

“Under the Biden-Harris administration, Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 11 million encounters of inadmissible aliens at our borders. On top of that astronomical number, CBP also recorded roughly two million known gotaways—a number that exceeded the previous 10 fiscal years combined…Under your [Secretary Noem] and President Trump’s leadership, the Border Patrol has apprehended just around 25,000 illegal crossers at the Southwest border. By comparison, in December 2024, more than 47,000 illegal crossers were apprehended.”

In response to Chairman Green’s question about the successful border security efforts under President Trump’s leadership, Secretary Noem answered:

“Since President Trump has been in office, in these few short months, we have deported over 250 known terrorists out of the country. Those are individuals that were allowed to come into our country unchecked by the previous administration. We have deported thousands of criminals that have perpetuated the worst of the worst crimes in our communities: murderers, rapists, child pornographers, traffickers––and we have returned them back to their home countries. The message that was sent by the last administration was ‘come to America, send your worst of your worst.’ They were given free rein to make a home here and given every opportunity…. What President Trump has done is follow the law. He has implemented the law and said that American citizens should come first.”

In response to Democrats’ efforts to defend MS-13 gang members and protest their removal, Secretary Noem replied to Democrat Dan Goldman (D-NY):

“It’s got to be extremely discouraging to be one of your constituents. To see you fight for a terrorist like [Kilmar Abrego Garcia] and not fight for them is extremely alarming.”

Vice Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) asked Secretary Noem how the additional border security resources advanced out of the Committee last month and renewed funding in the FY2026 budget can help DHS carry out its mission:

“We marked up a bill, about $70 billion, that can be put into your department to start enforcing these laws already passed by the Congress. The foreign terrorist organization designation was huge. Let me just ask you this, how will this bill, the reconciliation bill, assist you in your efforts to continue and promote safety in the United States?”

Secretary Noem answered:

“For years previous, the Department of Homeland Security has been neglected. It’s one of the larger agencies in the federal government with one of the smallest budgets, and certainly under the previous administration, the Coast Guard was hollowed out. Border Patrol and ICE were not allowed to do their jobs. They were not allowed to invest in new technologies that they could utilize for interdiction. Also, our borders need surveillance and technology to make sure that we know who’s coming into this country and why; our ports of entry need new scanners so that we’re truly scanning our shipping containers and much of our air freight. We don’t know what’s coming in by air either, you know, those kinds of adjustments, technology, and software upgrades are needed to compete, but also to secure our country with the threats that we face.”

Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence Chairman August Pfluger (R-TX) asked Secretary Noem what DHS is doing to find and remove the many known or suspected terrorists (KST) who crossed our borders under the Biden-Harris administration, to which Secretary Noem answered: 

“The previous administration let a lot of dangerous individuals into this country, to get a foothold and then not just [allowed] them to perpetuate terrorist activities in our country but also to recruit new members and to build out their systems and gain access to our infrastructure. So, I’m very proud of the fact that President Trump has aggressively enforced the law, [is] letting us use the tools that are afforded to us under the Department of Homeland Security to address these threats…. He has removed over 250 known terrorists, suspected terrorists on the watch list, thousands and thousands of individuals that were affiliated with them, but also individuals that committed crimes that are members of MS-13, Tren de Aragua, but also cartels and their members and affiliates in this country. So overwhelmingly, the safety of our communities is in a much better spot than it was just six short months ago.”

Chairman Pfluger then asked what DHS is doing to prevent gotaways at the Southwest border:

“I also represent a piece of Fort Cavazos, and we have military personnel––we have a designated area along the border. How is that process working for deterrents but also to ensure there are no gotaways like we had?”

Secretary Noem answered, outlining how DHS has returned frontline personnel to their missions in the field after the previous administration’s failures:

“There are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people that we don’t necessarily know how many of them are in this country, because we had Border Patrol assets and Coast Guard and ICE agents diverted into processing paperwork and facilitating illegal entry into our country. They weren’t doing their security operations. They weren’t allowed to do their jobs… We have a lot of gotaways. We also have some [that] we don’t even know that are in this country yet, and that’s probably what keeps me up at night the most. It’s the fact that we don’t really know the dangerous individuals that may be in this country that we have to get out before something happens that jeopardizes our national security.”

FEMA:

Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security Chairman Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) asked about DHS’s plans to reform FEMA:

“I can tell you that FEMA needs many, many reforms. I remember as mayor of Miami-Dade County in 2015, we are still processing claims through FEMA for Hurricane Katrina, which happened 10 years earlier. While I do support efforts to reform FEMA, there are certain states and cities and countries that actually can respond a heck of a lot better than others, and we can’t leave those that can’t fend for themselves. And I would hope that that’s part of your review and the reform of FEMA. Is that what you plan to do?”

Secretary Noem answered:

“Yes, sir. We know that every single state is not prepared today to take over their emergency operations. That’s why the president has been clear that he wants to empower states and give them the opportunity to build out their response, to also sign MOUs with surrounding states and other resources they can use to best serve their people. He just doesn’t believe that FEMA has been successful in being there in a time of crisis for people.”

Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology Chairman Dale Strong (R-AL) asked about the goals of President Trump’s new FEMA Review Council, to which Secretary Noem answered:

“The priorities of the council is to evaluate FEMA as it stands today and how it can better be reformed and re-placed to respond to people’s needs in a time of crisis––what we can do to strengthen states, to give them more tools and resources to take care of their people and empower them to make decisions in a critical response period. Many times you’ve seen over the years where the federal government has not shown up when they were expected to and then even after a crisis was over, had committed to being there to help people restructure and to rebuild, and never followed through on it.”

“We still have claims outstanding in FEMA from Hurricane Katrina. Wildfire claims from out west that are 10 years old where people said, ‘We have this claim, this loss. FEMA committed to pay it and still has not followed through on it.’ We saw political targeting that happened in North Carolina, where individuals within FEMA decided who could get help and who didn’t get help. So that needs to end, and this needs some integrity to it and making sure the federal government is there for support, but [that] the states are empowered to do the emergency response is very important to President Trump.”

CISA:

In his opening statement, Chairman Green discussed the importance of bolstering our cyber workforce amid increased threats:

“Today, more than 500,000 cybersecurity positions across this country, in both the public and private sectors, are currently unfilled. That’s half a million cyber professionals not on the frontlines to defend us from the malicious activity jeopardizing our national security. That’s why I introduced the Cyber PIVOTT Act, which would create an ROTC-style scholarship program enabling men and women across this country to gain hands-on experience in cybersecurity or related fields in exchange for a period of required government service, across any level of government… It’s time to bring this bill to the floor for a vote. Madam Secretary, I look forward to working with you on finding creative solutions to our cyber workforce shortage, as well as ensuring that the agencies under DHS tasked with defending our cyber borders, primarily CISA, remain focused on that task.”

In response to Vice Chairman McCaul’s question on DHS budget priorities, Secretary Noem reaffirmed the importance of CISA’s mission and revealed startling information on the ‘Typhoon’ attacks under the Biden administration:

 “We don’t just face threats from gangs and cartels––it’s from China and PRC and Iran and hackers that come into our system. Salt and Volt Typhoon have taught us that we’re extremely vulnerable to these kinds of attempts in the future. In fact, one of the most alarming things I heard as soon as I was nominated for this position was in a briefing from CISA that told me that they knew with Salt Typhoon that we had been hacked, but they also said they didn’t know how it happened or how to stop it in the future. Now the main goal of CISA is to hunt and harden our systems, hunt bad actors and harden our systems for our small and medium sized critical infrastructure.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) asked Secretary Noem what measures DHS is taking to prevent CISA from its prior censorship of Americans:

“Would you please provide an update on your efforts to investigate the severity of MDM [Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation] efforts during the Biden regime, and what steps are you taking to ensure CISA will never again serve as the United States government’s ‘Ministry of Truth?’”

Secretary Noem answered:

“CISA definitely was so far off mission that they forgot what their purpose clearly was. CISA was created to hunt down bad actors and to harden our systems to support local infrastructure, critical infrastructure that makes this country run, and those small- and medium-sized businesses that don’t have the resources to make sure that their software programs, their technology [is] secure from hackers and from bad actors around the world. Instead, they were out there deciding what was truth, what wasn’t truth, censoring what people could say was not their mission whatsoever. And so we have stopped those activities. We have refocused our resources back onto the cybersecurity mission and ensured that CISA is cooperating with our local and state individuals and businesses to make sure that we’re truly being proactive at not just hardening our systems but stopping the attacks that we have from countries that hate us.”

Chairman Strong asked how CISA is preparing to keep mass-spectator events secure as America prepares to host large-scale events in the coming years:

“I’d also like to highlight the great work of CISA to protect our infrastructure and mass gathering events. Their training and exercises help states and localities respond quickly and effectively to evolving threats. In Huntsville, Alabama, collaboration among the FBI, the ATF, CISA’s Office for Bombing prevention represents a national hub of expertise focused on countering bomb threats and the use of explosives by adversaries. Secretary Noem, can you speak to how CISA is working with interagency partners to secure infrastructure, particularly ahead of the World Cup and Olympics.”

Secretary Noem answered:

“It is the priority point for all agencies to interact with their connections to state and local governments. And many times CISA got siloed and was not sharing information. So we’re building out a cooperation that has never existed before, and where we’re bringing them to the table, sharing information that we may have as far as vulnerabilities but also how we can partner with the private industry.”

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