Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin threw Kristi Noem under the bus by publicly calling her signature billion-dollar warehouse crusade a mistake in a humiliating testimony.
Mullin, who served in Congress before replacing Noem in late March, made the admission while speaking before the House of Representatives on Thursday.
He was pressed on Noem’s decision as Homeland Security secretary in mid-March to purchase 11 warehouses for roughly $1 billion to serve as a sprawling network of detention sites for President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown push. The effort has received major blowback from local communities and officials nationwide.
“There’s some that just quite frankly, probably won’t work,” Mullin said. “There are some that we’re trying to make work, but there was some due diligence that maybe wasn’t actually checked off.”
It’s a rare admission of internal oversight from a DHS that rarely acknowledges its failures publicly.
Mullen “has struck a cautious tone” toward the scheme since succeeding Noem, who earned the moniker “ICE Barbie” for her camera-ready immigration crackdowns before she was booted by the president in March, according to The Washington Post.
“He instructed staff to review the purchases and slowed the process of issuing contracts for their development,” the newspaper reported.
A person briefed on the department’s plans told the Post that the DHS is in the midst of holding talks with government partners about selling or repurposing at least seven of the warehouses bought to serve as migrant detention sites.
The Trump administration has so far confirmed it is ditching warehouses in the following towns: Social Circle, Georgia; Romulus, Michigan; and Tremont and Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
The New York Times previously reported that warehouses in Roxbury, New Jersey, and Salt Lake City, Utah, were also on the chopping block.
DHS is still pushing ahead with warehouses in areas including Maryland and Arizona, in San Antonio and near El Paso, despite Mullin’s reservations, the Post reported.
“From day one, DHS has remained singularly focused on removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from the United States and is always evaluating the best methods to do so,” a department spokesperson told the Daily Beast. “These heinous criminals, once arrested, should be removed at lightning speed, not housed on American soil at the taxpayer’s expense. DHS is moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners.”
