WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) today joined MS NOW’s Ana Cabrera Reports to discuss the urgent and dire need for accountability from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem on the shootings of civilians in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. The Senator also discussed his staunch opposition to any government funding package that provides additional funding for ICE.
“Noem’s got to go…when there is a serious, serious situation involving the death of two citizens, she calls them ‘domestic terrorists.’ No one has confidence that she’s doing this job on the level,” said Senator Welch. “I would [support impeaching Noem], if that’s what it took. But she should resign. I mean, she is a real problem because what she’s doing is turning the function of immigration and enforcement away from enforcement and into being kind of a shock troop that goes into cities and acts with impunity. She’s blown the job. We need immigration enforcement, but that’s not what she’s doing—it’s mass intimidation.”
Watch the interview and read key quotes from Senator Welch’s interview with host Ana Cabrera:
Senator Welch on the need for full and transparent investigations into ICE’s shootings of civilians in Minnesota:
“Well, we all saw the videos: two 37-year-old people—a mother of three and then an ICU nurse who works at the VA—were shot and killed. And the immediate response by Kristi Noem is essentially ‘no big deal,’ ‘it was their own fault,’ they’re ‘domestic terrorists.’ It’s truly a shocking situation, and I think many of my Republican colleagues are dismayed that there’s a refusal on the part of Kristi Noem or the Administration to even have an investigation. You know, when I talked to law enforcement officers here in Vermont, this is not policing that they at all respect. There has to be an investigation [into] the tactics of ICE.”
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Senator Welch on the approaching government funding deadline and funding for DHS:
“We don’t want to shut down, we want accountability. And in fact, five of the six appropriation bills have been bipartisan, and we should move those. What we should do is have a separate vote on DHS. By the way, even with the shutdown, they had gotten $75 billion in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’
“So, the debate here is about accountability, in my view, is that number one, we should have separate votes. That allows the American people to hold each and every one of us accountable—that’s Senator Thune’s decision. Number two, we should all agree that there absolutely has to be an independent investigation. Number three…ICE ought to get out of Minnesota. It is causing chaos and bedlam, and they should do a strategic withdrawal.”
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