Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) attended a House Homeland Security Committee hearing featuring Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem just days after she was caught on bodycam footage storming an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility.
Over the weekend, McIver was captured on bodycam footage storming ICE’s Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey — seemingly getting physical with agents and shouting.
DHS officials released the bodycam footage and Noem, at the hearing that McIver attended on Wednesday, called her actions “beneath” the institution of Congress. Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) were also among the Congress members at the Newark facility.
“As a vehicle approached a security gate at Delaney Hall Detention Center, a mob of protestors, including three members of Congress, stormed the gate and they trespassed into the detention facility,” Noem said at the hearing, describing what occurred.
“We have footage of those members slamming their bodies into our law enforcement officers, shoving them, screaming profanities in their faces, striking them with their fists, and otherwise assaulting law enforcement,” Noem said. “What happened was lawlessness and it was beneath this body.”
Noem also stated that DHS regularly gives members of Congress tours of their facilities and that such requests from McIver and the other Democrats would have been honored.
“I believe what you saw last Friday at Delaney Hall was not oversight, I believe that it was breaking into a federal facility and assaulting law enforcement officers,” Noem said. “This congresswoman was surrounded by people who were criminals and taking criminal actions. And so we need to be honest about what happened here.”
McIver has since said that she did not “body slam anyone” and claimed she was “simply there to do [her] job.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
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