'Don't be a hypocrite:' Congressional hearing with DHS Secretary Mullin heats up

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

A U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing devolved into a shouting match between Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

The Thursday hearing was supposed to examine the department’s recent immigration policies, including migrant child separation.

But the hearing escalated after DeLauro accused Mullin of overseeing the separation of 3,900 migrant minors from their families and the former senator from Oklahoma interrupted her.

“Four hundred fifty thousand kids were lost during the Biden administration, and you didn’t say a word about it,” Mullin said, referring to the so-called “unaccompanied alien children” who were placed with unvetted sponsors in the U.S. and then disappeared.

“Mr. Secretary, do not interrupt!” DeLauro said, gesturing at Mullin to cease speaking.

“Don’t you point your finger at me, don’t be a hypocrite,” Mullin replied.

“I will point my finger at you!”

“Don’t you be a hypocrite then.”

“3,900 kids—”

“You should be as upset about the 450,000 kids that were lost.”

“I am upset—”

“You didn’t say a word about it! For four years you never said a word.”

“Could you put him in his place?” DeLauro asked the subcommittee’s Chairman Mark Amodei, R-Nev., who had tried unsuccessfully to interject.

“Don’t yell at me, you should be put in your place,” Mullin quipped.

Despite Amodei telling him to save his responses for his own closing statement rather than interrupting DeLauro’s time, Mullin continued.

“My issue is that they say this for soundbites, and I’m not going to let them say something like that that’s not true,” the former senator from Oklahoma said.

“Do not accuse me of lying. Do not,” DeLauro told him.

The tense exchange highlighted just how far apart Republicans and Democrats are on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement policies.

Republicans have highlighted the 95% reduction in illegal border crossings during the second Trump administration, which has also overseen the deportation or self-removal of more than 2 million migrants who had illegally lived in the U.S.

During the former Biden administration, more than 14 million illegal entries were reported nationwide, The Center Square exclusively reported, including two million "gotaways," those who evaded capture.

Under the Biden administration, the Office of Refugee Resettlement often placed unaccompanied migrant minors with unvetted sponsors and neglected to perform background checks.

As a result, children were released to alleged gang members, human traffickers, non-family members and sent to non-residential addresses, federal inspector general audits and a Florida grand jury found, The Center Square reported.

More than 300,000 of these children are still unaccounted for, according to U.S. Department of Justice officials.

Democratic lawmakers, however, have criticized the recent conduct of federal immigration enforcement agents carrying out the administration’s agenda, including the deadly January shootings of two U.S. citizens who participated in anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis.

Senate Democrats even triggered the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history in 2026, lasting from Feb. 14 to April 30, over demands that Republicans implement dozens of reforms to federal immigration enforcement operations. The government eventually reopened, without Republicans instituting the proposed reforms.