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A Senate Appropriations Committee hearing was derailed Tuesday after Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin got into a heated exchange, prompting the Democrat to tell Mullin to “calm down.”
Van Hollen, who is best known for flying to El Salvador to meet with controversial illegal immigrant and alleged gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, accused the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of having a “pattern” of abuse while enforcing immigration law. He pointed to several recent DHS-involved shootings, including those involving Venezuelan national Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis and activists Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
Mullin pushed back against the allegation as an “exaggeration of words,” saying, “When you say there’s a pattern, there’s not a pattern.”
“Oh, I would say three in a row is a pattern,” retorted Van Hollen, to which Mullin shot back, “No, sir … a pattern of three people when we average 1900 a day is not a pattern.”
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Van Hollen insisted “there was a pattern.” As the two talked over each other, Van Hollen shook his head, saying, “Let’s get out the dictionary, put your semantics aside, the reality is this is a big problem.”
He pressed Mullin to commit to sharing evidence from the federal officer-involved shootings to Minnesota authorities.
“It sounds like you’re not willing to share evidence with the state authorities who are trying to get to the bottom of this. And I will just say, Mr. Secretary, that given the statements that came out of this administration, including the White House, it is hard to trust this administration to do an independent investigation,” said Van Hollen.
“But yet you trust your last administration?” Mullin fired back.
“I’m just saying if we’re calling an apple what an apple is and an orange what an orange is, don’t sit there and start cherry-picking one administration to believe and another administration not to believe,” Mullin continued.
In response, Van Hollen raised his hands and said, “Mr. Secretary, just, just please calm down.”
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During the hearing, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., pressed Mullin to commit to abiding by court orders, citing a federal judge’s claim that DHS had violated just under 100 orders in Minnesota. Murphy also criticized DHS for “spending money like stone drunk sailors,” including on “the massive detention centers that you are building.”
Murphy asked Mullin, “Now that you are on the job, can you commit to us that if a court judges something ICE is doing, something DHS is doing as illegal, unconstitutional, tells you to stop, that you will comply with the court order?”
Mullin answered, “We will never break the Constitution, and we’re not going to break the law, but we’re going to enforce our nation’s laws, and we’re going to enforce the laws that you guys passed and that we implement. We will never go outside that. And if we do, we’ll hold each other accountable for that.”
“But that doesn’t sound like the same thing as committing that you will obey a court order,” pressed Murphy. “Will you, or will you not implement court orders?”
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In response, Mullin said, “If we didn’t think courts were politicized, then I would probably be able to answer that. But we see courts over and over again that use their bench for their political opinion, not just the rule of law.”
He chided Murphy, saying, “Don’t put words in my mouth,” adding, “What I’m saying is we will enforce the law, and we’re never going to break the Constitution.”
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Looking aside to his colleagues on the committee, Murphy remarked, “Listen, if you’re a Republican or Democrat on this committee, you should be really, really freaked out.”
“We should be really concerned about the rulings that come out of the courts, and how often they get overturned,” retorted Mullin.
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