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Kristi Noem Didn’t Give a Sh*t About ‘the Details’
Such as a woman who was here legally and helped the homeless—but was then deported anyway.
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BEFORE SHE WAS INFORMED YESTERDAY via a presidential Truth Social post that her tenure as secretary of homeland security is about to end, Kristi Noem was battered by Democrats and Republicans alike at congressional hearings this past week. A couple of Republicans made news by eviscerating her tenure in office, but I thought a different back-and-forth was at least as revealing.
Last week, Noem admitted that her department had arrested and deported DACA recipients—the “Dreamers” who are shielded from deportation and have had work authorization since 2012—at unacceptable levels. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) grilled her about the startling confession:
Durbin: Do you understand that people that are covered and protected by DACA have to go through a background check which includes a criminal check? Yes or no?
Noem: Yes.
Durbin: You do. Last week your agency informed us that last year ICE arrested 261 DACA holders and deported 86 of them. We learned about a DACA recipient who’d lived in this country for decades, was arrested by ICE at her green card appointment. In tears she hugged her daughter goodbye, she was deported to Mexico within twenty-four hours. Madam Secretary, why have you deported dozens of DACA holders who had to comply with a criminal background check to be eligible for DACA?
Noem: Sir, we follow all laws as applicable to the Department of Homeland Security in how we handle detainment and deportations.
Durbin: Why did you deport them?
Noem: I will not—I don’t know the details of that specific case you just read but I will look into it, sir.
Noem added that DHS has followed the law, to which Durbin responded that she had “clearly violated the law.” But I was struck by Noem’s words: “the details.”
Do we expect the DHS secretary to know “the details” of every case in the country? Of course not. But we should expect her to care about them.
THE WOMAN DURBIN WAS REFERRING to is Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, 42, who lived in the United States for 27 years and has a daughter who is a U.S. citizen. I wanted to know what it’s like when the government—one’s own government—says you can live and work here legally, before betraying you at a green card appointment and plucking you unceremoniously from your family, job, and life. So I spoke to Maria, who is currently living with her mother in Mexico, to find out what she’s been through and what it says about Trump, Noem, and the relentless deportation machine that continues to break the law.
Maria, from Sacramento, is a hospitality area manager for Motel 6 properties. She had been looking forward to her green card appointment on February 18. Though she is able to live and work here legally under DACA, her daughter Damaris, 21, is now old enough to sponsor her for a green card. For Maria, a green card would “open doors” to visit different countries, she told me. Growing up in a Catholic family, she dreamed of visiting the Vatican in Rome. She was so excited for her appointment that she did her hair and makeup.
But that excitement turned to dread as Maria was detained and deported back to Mexico the next morning.
