People who were injured, arrested, or deported by the former US Secretary of Homeland Security are celebrating her depar

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-04-05/the-victims-left-in-kristi-noems-wake-the-damage-is-done-to-me-to-the-americans-who-have-been-murdered-to-the-migrants.html

The ‘victims’ left in Kristi Noem’s wake: ‘The damage is done. To me, to the Americans who have been murdered, to the migrants’

People who were injured, arrested, or deported by the former US Secretary of Homeland Security are celebrating her departure


In a few hours, Arianne Betancourt will face one of the people responsible for her father being locked up in Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention center.

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But on that Tuesday at the beginning of March inside the Dirksen Building, Noem came dressed in an impeccably tailored brown suit. A man shouts at her that she’s committing crimes against humanity, and the members of Angel Families jump to her defense. Then the voice of a woman in a pink suit rings out: “I stand with immigrants,” she says, her assertion rising above the collective din. It is Betancourt.

“I shouted it with all the power of my soul,” she recalls of that day. “I felt disgusted to see her, I felt shame.”

Five months ago, everything changed in Betancourt’s life. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained her 54-year-old Cuban father Justo Betancourt. Amid the anguish, she suffered the miscarriage of her son. She cries almost every day. The day she began to protest at public demonstrations and vigils to demand her father’s freedom, her boyfriend left her, her aunt kicked her out of the house, and several friends and a cousin cut off contact. “They say I lost my head, that I’m crazy,” she says. “But I’m not only doing this for my father, but for many people.”

In the hearing room, very close to Betancourt, sat Marimar Martínez, the 30-year-old U.S. teacher who was shot by a Border Patrol agent on October 4, 2025 in Chicago. The incident left her with nerve damage in her right hand. At one point, Senator Richard Blumenthal asked Noem to recognize the error that had been committed by the agents connected to the shooting of Martínez. “Sir, I don’t know the situation or the case,” Noem responded. During his turn, Senator Dick Durbin asked about the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens who died after being shot by immigration agents deployed in Minneapolis, and who Noem called “domestic terrorists.”

[pfitz59]

1. Firing is not enough

There must be accountability.

[BurnDoubt]

2. Absolutely

What we used to call Justice Demands It.

[tanyev]

3. Celebrate, but realize that Noem was carrying out Trump's wishes.

Her successor will be little, if any, improvement.