Sec. Noem to Rep. Escobar: “It Was the Parents’ Choice — Our Policy Is to Keep Families Together”; FEMA: “Claims Open from Katrina”

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem testified before Congress in May 2025, clashing with Rep. Veronica Escobar on the deportation of families with U.S. citizen children. “The specific cases you’re referencing — it was the parents’ choice to take their children,” Noem said. “It is the policy of the Trump administration to keep families together.” When Rep. Rosa DeLauro demanded “Where is the evidence of FEMA’s failure?”, Noem responded: “We still have claims open from Hurricane Katrina. We have fire claims 7 to 10 years old still unpaid. The worst thing the federal government can do is promise to be there and then never follow through.” DeLauro accused: “The federal government is abdicating its commitment.” Noem fired back: “It did certainly under Joe Biden’s administration."

"The Parents’ Choice”

Rep. Escobar pressed Noem on specific ICE forms and procedures related to the deportation of families with citizen children.

“Were any of the individuals who were deported, who had U.S. citizen children deported with them, were they given an opportunity to sign that form?” Escobar asked, referencing ICE Form 71-078 — the caregiver designation at arrest form.

Noem responded with the core point: “The specific cases that you’re referencing with these children, it was the parents’ choice to take their children.”

She stated the policy: “It is the policy of the Trump administration to keep families together.”

Escobar attempted to interrupt: “Did ICE follow through on—”

Noem continued: “To keep families together.”

Escobar cut in: “Ma’am, reclaiming my time. I said the questions are really simple, yes or no.”

Noem offered to follow up: “I will get back to you on that specific form. I don’t know the number. But I do know these mothers were on the record.”

Escobar attempted to continue: “The second form—”

Noem tried to complete her answer, prompting Escobar to say: “I’d like you to avoid the filibuster so I can get to all my questions, please.”

Noem responded: “And answering your questions.”

The exchange captured the fundamental dishonesty of the Democratic framing on family deportations. Escobar was trying to establish that the administration had failed to offer parents a form that would have allowed them to designate a caretaker for their citizen children — implying that the children were forcibly deported. Noem’s response cut through the procedural games: the mothers chose to take their children with them. The children weren’t deported; they accompanied their deported parents by parental choice.

The “keep families together” principle was the administration’s position — and it was, ironically, the same principle Democrats had demanded during the first-term border crisis. When Trump’s first administration had separated families at the border, Democrats had been outraged. Now that the administration was keeping families together by allowing deported parents to take their children, Democrats were outraged about that too.

FEMA: “Claims from Katrina”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro challenged Noem’s criticism of FEMA.

“Where is the evidence of the failure of FEMA?” DeLauro demanded.

Noem’s answer was devastating in its specificity: “Congresswoman, we still have claims open from Hurricane Katrina.”

She continued: “We have fire claims that are still unpaid to people who said they were due them — seven to eight to ten years old. They have never been paid by FEMA.”

She stated the principle: “One of the worst things that the federal government can do is to stand up in front of the American public and say, ‘We will be there. We will walk alongside you in the most horrible time of your life,’ and then never follow through on it.”

She described Trump’s approach: “What the president has said is he’s sick and tired of federal agencies that pick and choose who wins and who loses. He wants to make sure that when the federal government makes a commitment, it follows through.”

She stated the reform vision: “He’s going to empower states.”

DeLauro escalated: “The federal government is abdicating its commitment to the American people.”

Noem delivered the counter-punch: “It did certainly under Joe Biden’s administration.”

The Katrina claims revelation was the most damaging fact in the exchange. Hurricane Katrina had struck in August 2005 — nearly twenty years before Noem’s testimony. The fact that FEMA still had open claims from a disaster two decades earlier was not merely evidence of bureaucratic slowness; it was evidence of institutional failure at a fundamental level.

For disaster victims, FEMA’s inability to resolve claims within a reasonable timeframe was not an administrative inconvenience. It was a broken promise that left families in financial limbo for years or decades. People who had lost their homes in Katrina had spent twenty years waiting for the federal government to fulfill its commitment. Fire victims from seven to ten years prior were still waiting for payments they were owed.

The Biden FEMA Comparison

Noem’s pivot to Biden’s FEMA record turned DeLauro’s attack into an indictment of the previous administration. If FEMA was failing, the failure had been occurring for years under Democratic leadership. The Trump administration’s proposed reforms — empowering states, streamlining processes, ensuring follow-through — were a response to decades of dysfunction that both parties had tolerated.

DeLauro’s request for “information and evidence” about FEMA’s dysfunction was itself an acknowledgment that the problems Noem described were real. If DeLauro believed FEMA was functioning well, she would have dismissed the claims. Instead, she asked for documentation — implicitly accepting that the agency’s track record warranted scrutiny.

The exchange illustrated the difference between the two parties’ approaches to government accountability. Democrats defended the institutions — arguing that any criticism of FEMA was an “abdication of commitment.” Republicans demanded that the institutions perform — arguing that making promises and failing to keep them was the real abdication.

Key Takeaways

• Noem to Escobar: “It was the parents’ choice to take their children. Our policy is to keep families together.”
• Noem offered to follow up on specific ICE forms but stated: “These mothers were on the record.”
• On FEMA failure: “We still have claims open from Hurricane Katrina. Fire claims 7-10 years old still unpaid.”
• DeLauro: “The federal government is abdicating its commitment.” Noem: “It did certainly under Joe Biden’s administration.”
• Noem: “The worst thing government can do is promise to be there in the most horrible time of your life and never follow through.”