Continuing to position himself as a major voice of congressional opposition to what he characterizes as the illegal overreach of the executive branch in the second Donald Trump administration, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) castigated Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying she had repeatedly broken the oath she swore when she agreed to serve a nation governed by the Constitution.
Murphy’s criticism was so stark that he prefaced it by asserting “I say this with seriousness and respect” — lest anyone think the Senator’s laundry list of accusations against Noem was mere political rhetoric rather than a for-the-record accounting.
“Your department is out of control,” Murphy said. “You are spending like you don’t have a budget…you are ignoring the immigration laws of this nation and implementing a brand new immigration system that you have invented, that has little relation to the statutes that you are required — that you are commanded — to follow, as spelled out in your oath of office.”
Accusing Noem of violating the rights of immigrants who reside in the U.S., Murphy said “your agency acts as if laws don’t matter, as if the election gave you some mandate to violate the constitution and the laws passed by this congress. It did not give you that mandate.”
Pitting the rule of law against the whims of fiat, Murphy said to Noem: “You act as if your disagreement with the law — or even the public’s disagreement with the law — is relevant and gives you the ability to create your own law. It does not give you that ability.”
https://2paragraphs.com/2025/05/u-s-senator-slams-kristi-noem-you-act-as-if-your-disagreement-with-the-law-gives-you-the-ability-to-create-your-own-law/