Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is tough on immigration—but apparently soft on lunchtime.
During a Sunday morning appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend, Noem agonized over the not-so-warm welcome ICE agents are receiving in Chicago.
Referring to the city as a “war zone,” Noem claimed residents are intimidating the armed, sometimes-masked, and largely unwanted federal officers.
“In fact, they don’t even let our ICE officers and our border patrol officers use restrooms and facilities,” she lamented. “Those men and women were telling us that they have to figure out even where they can go sit down for five minutes to have lunch or to use the restroom throughout their shift or their break.”
While war zones aren’t exactly known for safe and secure public restrooms, Noem may have been projecting from her own experience in the Windy City on Saturday, where she was met with a barrage of anti-ICE protesters and denied entry to a government building where she’d tried to use the bathroom.
“Interesting,” Noem quipped in a video Fox News posted on X, after being blocked from entering a building.
Noem also fired shots at Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker—both Democrats—on Sunday, alleging their condemnation of Trump’s immigration crackdown has fostered resentment toward federal agents.
“His city is a war zone and he’s lying so that criminals can go in there and destroy people’s lives,” Noem said of Johnson. “Those individuals that live there are waking up to it, they under[stand] that where we have gone, we have made it much more free, people are much safer.”
Chicago, the country’s third-largest city, has become the latest flashpoint in Trump’s migrant crackdown. Both Johnson and Pritzker have sharply condemned the federal raids, as thousands of residents have taken to the streets in protest.
During an appearance on State of the Union Sunday morning, Pritzker said Noem “doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“People are booing her on the street,” he told host Jake Tapper. “[ICE is] raiding neighborhoods where instead of going after the bad guys, they’re just picking up people who are brown and Black, then checking their credentials… I don’t know about you, but I don’t carry around papers that say I’m a U.S. citizen.”
In a video posted by right-wing commentator Benny Johnson on Saturday, Noem said the Trump administration was sending the “Department of War”—as Trump now refers to the Department of Defense—into Portland and Chicago within 24 hours.
“We’re sending in the Department of War. I sent a request to Secretary Hegseth. Will be rolling in in the next 24 hours… This country is a country of laws. If you don’t like the laws go change them. We are enforcing them. That is sending a message to the whole world,” Noem told Johnson.
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