by Jill Boogren
Standing behind a table piled with bags of confiscated drugs and guns on Friday, Oct. 24, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told the media her department is focused on getting the “worst of the worst off of our streets.”
Accompanied by four regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, Noem said the agency has removed 4,300 people from the streets since January. Of those, according to Noem, 3,316 had criminal histories, 98 were gang members, 11 were known or suspected terrorists, and two were foreign fugitives.
Asked whether the department plans to deploy the National Guard to the Twin Cities, Noem replied, “It’s up to the president if he believes the national guard should be deployed to any situation in any city across our country.” (When the president has authority to federalize the National Guard is under dispute.)
Noem said an increase of federal officers will be coming. Citing a bill Congress passed allocating 10,000 new ICE officers across the country, Noem said the first 1,200-1,500 are out in their offices now and thousands more will be deployed in the “next week or two,” including dozens of new agents and federal officers in the Twin Cities.
Members of the media, who were instructed to arrive at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building two hours before the press conference, exited the building afterward to a crowd of more than 1,000 people gathered outside chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear. Immigrants are welcome here.”
Some of the handmade signs held up by protesters read: “Go home, Noem,” “ICE get out of our communities,” “Keep the immigrants/Deport the racists,” and “If your job is to kidnap people, mine is to make that harder.”
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