Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Saturday vowed her department will strengthen its efforts to crack down on immigration, thanks to a funding boost from President Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill, which he signed into law last week.
“Now that the president’s reconciliation bill, the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ has passed, we also have more resources,” Noem said at a news conference in Tampa, Florida. “We’re going to come harder and faster, and we’re going to take these criminals down with even more strength than we ever have before.”
The new law provides agencies — particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, which are within DHS — far larger funds for immigration enforcement. ICE is receiving nearly $75 billion through 2029, with $45 billion allocated to expand the capacity of its detention centers. Meanwhile, CBP is receiving more than $46 billion for the border wall.
During the news conference, Noem also justified the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda, which has included efforts to end birthright citizenship, deporting migrants to countries other than their homelands and, in recent weeks, chaotic immigration raids in public and workplaces across Southern California.
Noem said Trump “has a mandate from the American people to clean up our streets, to help make our communities safer.”
Noem’s comments come a day after a federal judge dealt a major blow to the Trump administration, finding that DHS has been making stops and arrests in Los Angeles immigration raids without probable cause. US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, also granted a temporary restraining order to stop the department from detaining individuals solely on race or ethnicity, spoken language or accent, or “presence at a particular location” like a bus stop or occupation.
When asked by a reporter at the news conference about Friday’s order, Noem called the judge “an idiot” while doubling down on the department’s practices.
“We have all the right in the world to go out on the streets and to uphold the law and to do what we’re going to do, so none of our operations are going to change,” Noem said, adding that the judge’s findings “were absolutely false.”
The White House similarly slammed Friday’s order in a statement to CNN Saturday, calling it a “gross overstep of judicial authority.”
“No federal judge has the authority to dictate immigration policy — that authority rests with Congress and the President,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in the statement. “Enforcement operations require careful planning and execution; skills far beyond the purview or jurisdiction of any judge.”
CNN’s Julia Benbrook contributed to this report.
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