1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

I am a constituent writing with serious concern about actions taken under the authority of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that are causing immediate harm to U.S. citizens and eroding constitutional protections Congress is sworn to uphold. In 2025, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, ICE agents operating under DHS authority fatally shot two U.S. citizens during enforcement operations. These deaths occurred amid expanded and aggressively deployed ICE activity approved and defended by Secretary Noem. The killing of American citizens during domestic enforcement operations points to grave failures in supervision, use-of-force standards, operational control, and leadership accountability at the highest level of DHS. In 2024–2025, nationwide, Secretary Noem advanced and implemented enforcement directives emphasizing mass detention, rapid interior operations, and escalated agent posture while resisting meaningful transparency or congressional scrutiny. Members of Congress, civil-rights advocates, and legal observers raised credible concerns that these directives increased the likelihood of unlawful searches, excessive force, and due-process violations affecting citizens, asylum seekers, and children. In 2024, Secretary Noem was the subject of multiple ethics complaints and sustained reporting regarding the use of official platforms and public resources for personal and political promotion. These actions, taken while overseeing one of the federal government’s most coercive agencies, further undermine confidence in her judgment and fitness to command. Taken together, these incidents demonstrate systemic leadership failure, not isolated misconduct. When federal agents kill U.S. citizens during domestic operations and enforcement policy proceeds without restraint or accountability, the result implicates the Fourth Amendment, due-process guarantees, and Congress’s non-delegable responsibility to exercise oversight of executive power. You must now take specific, public steps. I expect you to state on the record whether Secretary Noem’s conduct meets the standard required to continue serving as DHS Secretary. In addition, this situation requires you to call for and support a formal impeachment inquiry or impeachment proceedings, including referral of all relevant evidence to the House of Representatives and full cooperation with congressional investigators. As necessary backstop actions, your office should support immediate oversight hearings, insist on preservation and disclosure of all DHS records related to ICE use-of-force policies and operational directives issued under Secretary Noem’s leadership, and oppose any further expansion of enforcement authority until Congress completes its review. Further deaths, injuries, or constitutional violations resulting from unchecked DHS practices are foreseeable and preventable, and congressional inaction will carry shared responsibility for those outcomes. This is a moment for Congress to reaffirm that no official is above the law and that federal power must be exercised with restraint, accountability, and respect for human life.