In a high-profile hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal pressed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for answers about federal agents’ practice of arresting, detaining and injuring U.S. citizens.
Noem’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee — where she faced scrutiny from Democrats and a few Republicans — was her first appearance before Congress since the deaths of two Americans by federal agents in Minneapolis. The hearing took place against the backdrop of the shutdown of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, though funding remains for its immigration enforcement offices.
The Democratic senator from Connecticut used his five minutes of questioning to ask Noem about specific incidents involving Americans who had encounters with officers from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He said he left the hours-long hearing disappointed by her answers.
“The secretary of Homeland Security owed them better than she gave this morning — her evasive, unresponsive answers; her refusal to acknowledge her responsibility and to commit to changing or reforming the brutal, unconscionable practices of her agency is not only regrettable, it is unforgivable,” Blumenthal said at a press conference following the hearing.
Blumenthal asked three people to stand up during the hearing, all of them U.S. citizens who had been arrested or detained by federal agents. He went through each of their stories for Noem, and the three also appeared alongside Blumenthal at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol after the hearing. Noem declined to address them at the hearing.
“The individuals that may have been detained and arrested were individuals that could have been obstructing law enforcement operations and committing crimes,” Noem responded.
Leonardo “Leo” Garcia Venegas, a construction worker from Alabama, said he was detained twice by ICE agents last year while working on private construction sites.
When asked by Blumenthal if a citizen working lawfully shouldn’t be arrested, Noem replied, “In law enforcement operations across the country, there are times when U.S. citizens may be arrested or detained until their identity has been confirmed and that they haven’t committed a crime.”
Javier Ramirez, a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody by federal agents, holds up his birth certificate. He said he travels everywhere with identification since the incident. Credit: Lisa Hagen / CT Mirror
Javier Ramirez, an American citizen who lives in both Los Angeles and Tijuana, was also arrested by federal agents last year. He was charged with resisting arrest, but those charges were later dropped.
At the press conference alongside Blumenthal, Ramirez pulled out a stack of documents he carries around, including his birth certificate.
“I never used to carry this around, and since everything happened, I don’t feel safe being in my own country now,” Ramirez said. “I feel safer being in Mexico than here, and it’s sad, to be honest. It’s traumatizing.”
While he was in detention for four days, Ramirez couldn’t get medical attention for his severe diabetes and at one point lost consciousness, Blumenthal said. Noem said within 12 hours of arriving at a processing and detention center, individuals get medical examinations and the prescriptions they need. She said she’d look into why Ramirez didn’t get treatment.
Marimar Martinez’s incident has been one of the most high-profile incidents. Last fall in Chicago, she was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent and charged with assaulting an officer. A judge dismissed the charges late last year. Body camera footage of the scene and text messages have since been released.
DHS’ social media account pushed back on all of their accounts. But during her testimony, Noem said she didn’t know the specifics of Martinez’s case and that she would “ensure that all the procedures were followed properly.”
Blumenthal pressed her about the agent, Charles Exum, who repeatedly shot Martinez, pointing to messages from him appearing to brag about it.
“I don’t know why you can’t join me in saying it was wrong to shoot Marimar, almost cause her death, and then brag about it,” Blumenthal said. “Wouldn’t you agree with me that it was wrong?”
“The way that you portrayed it appears to be, but let me look into the case so I can speak to the specifics of it,” said Noem, who also couldn’t answer whether the agent was still working and whether he carries a firearm.
After the hearing, Martinez said he was doubtful of Noem’s lack of knowledge about her case.
“I know for a fact that she reads the newspaper. It’s been all over the news. I know she’s informed about my shooting,” Martinez said. “For the leader of DHS not to know about my shooting of a USA citizen by one of her agents is more alarming than her agency’s refusal to investigate these unlawful actions.”
During their exchange about whether the agent who shot Martinez was still on the job, Noem interjected and shifted to focus on victims of violent crimes.
She asked Blumenthal if he recognized the name Angel Samaniego, a 59-year-old Stamford man who was fatally shot in a motel in 2024. One of the people charged with his death in 2025 told Samaniego that she was fleeing from Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to the Stamford Advocate.
“I haven’t heard you say one victim’s name from illegal immigrants that are here perpetuating violence against people,” Noem said.
As they spoke over each other, Blumenthal sought to keep the focus on the three U.S. citizens he introduced and “a violation of rights and trust.”
When asked about the murder case in Connecticut at a press conference after Noem’s hearing, Blumenthal said he wasn’t going to engage until he looks into it.
“I’m not going to respond to her assertion that may or may not be true. I’m going to look into exactly what the facts are,” he said.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Blumenthal has held a trio of public forums as a member of the minority party to put a spotlight on the Trump administration’s immigration practices. They all featured U.S. citizens who had interactions with ICE or Border Patrol agents
A forum last week included Ryan Schwank, a former ICE attorney who was assigned to train cadets at the agency’s academy in Georgia.
Schwank testified that ICE was lying to Congress and Americans about its training standards and that he was instructed to teach cadets “to violate the Constitution.”
DHS responded in a statement that no training requirements have been removed and that officers still receive the same amount of training.
While much of the attention at Tuesday’s hearing was on Minneapolis and ICE’s tactics, it also focused on the ongoing shutdown of Noem’s department, which has stretched into its third week. Congressional Democrats have demanded multiple reforms to ICE in order to secure their vote for full-year funding for the enforcement agency. Negotiations between Democrats and the White House have been largely stalled.
As Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina railed against the shutdown during his line of questioning, Noem confirmed during the exchange that some in the U.S. Coast Guard and the Secret Service are still getting paid amid the lapse in funding.
ICE and Border Patrol remain funded since Congress approved $75 billion over the course of four years for these agencies.
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
