Welch Calls on Homeland Security Secretary Noem to Resign

In remarks on the floor of the Senate, Vermont’s junior senator argued that Noem has two main jobs — protecting the border and helping victims of disasters — and is failing at both.

“In her short tenure, Secretary Noem has overstepped, underperformed, and endangered the lives of countless Americans,” Welch said. “I believe it is time for Secretary Noem to resign or for her to be fired.”

Welch said Noem had undermined FEMA’s work, noting that she said in a cabinet meeting that “we are eliminating FEMA.”

“And she meant it,” Welch said.

The critical need for FEMA has been clear not just in the recent deadly flash floods in Texas, but in recent disasters in North Carolina, New Mexico, California, Kentucky, Hawaii and Vermont, the senator said. The federal agency provides crucial life-saving relief after disasters and helps speed recovery, Welch said.

“No state, no community can do this alone,” he said.

Welch said recent flooding in Vermont has shown that FEMA needs to be improved, not eliminated.

“We cannot have a leader in charge of FEMA that is committed to its destruction. We must have one who is energetically committed to its reform,” Welch said.

After the recent Texas floods, Noem’s “indifference” and “micromanagement” of the department were on full display, he said.  She had instituted a policy requiring her signature for all expenditures over $100,000, delaying a robust agency response for up to five days, he said.

“In a disaster, you do not have five days,” Welch said.

In addition, FEMA let contracts with call centers lapse, leaving no one to answer the phones in the crucial days after the flooding. Call center response rates dropped to just 16 percent in the days after the flash flooding, leaving nearly 14,000 calls unanswered, Welch said, citing media reports.

“In the aftermath of disaster, people cannot wait for help. Many are homeless or living in very dangerous conditions,” he said.

Welch gave credit to Trump for securing the border. He noted that the arrest of people crossing the border illegally had dwindled from nearly 250,000 a year in December 2023 to just over 6,000 last month.

Noem, however, had launched a “massive and far-reaching deportation plan” that makes no distinction between hard-working, tax-paying people and known criminals, Welch said.

The deportation efforts are hurting rural America in particular, where farmers rely on immigrants to milk cows and pick crops, as well as the construction industry, which has shut down building sites for a lack of workers, Welch said. The health care and hospitality industry are being hit hard, too, he said.

Welch also accused of Noem “fiscal mismanagement,” citing a $200 million ad campaign thanking Trump for his policies, and for spending $21 million to fly 400 migrants to Guantanamo Bay.

He also said she had “treated ICE like political theater,” citing an example from the Haskell Free Library in Vermont. In that instance, Noem, on a visit to the border-straddling Derby Line library in January, stepped back and forth over the line that represents the border, saying “51st state, U.S” as she went.

“That was deeply offensive to Vermonters, who have an enormous amount of affection for our Canadian neighbors,” Welch said.