DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Rep. Lauren Underwood clashed repeatedly during a House Appropriations Committee hearing Thursday, talking over each other so aggressively that committee Chairman Mark Amodei threatened to shut the hearing down entirely.
Underwood, a three-term Illinois Democrat, opened by describing conditions she witnessed firsthand at a Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana, where detainees told her it can take months to get medication refills.
“More detainees died in ICE custody in 2025 than ever before,” Underwood said. “Secretary Mullin, does DHS have any official, specific internal goals or policies to reduce deaths in custody?”
Mullin immediately pushed back. “Ma’am, your numbers just aren’t accurate,” he said, before pivoting to a comparison with state prisons. “Those are dangerous accusations that she’s making, because in the state of Illinois they’re twice as high to die in a state penitentiary from Illinois than they are in a detention center.”
“You are invited to this committee. This is my time,” Underwood shot back amid crosstalk from Mullin and the Nevada Republican committee Chairman Amodei.
“You need to be informed about what you’re saying,” Mullin said.
“I am,” Underwood replied.
“No you’re not, ma’am,” Mullin snapped.
The exchange grew so chaotic that Amodei intervened directly, warning both sides that the format would collapse entirely.
“If this format won’t work, then we’ll reschedule the meeting for later,” Amodei said. “This is not ‘Meet the Press’ or Fox News or whatever for anybody involved. It’s what’s the question? What’s the answer?”
When questioning resumed, Underwood pressed again on whether DHS has any policy to reduce custody deaths. Mullin repeated his statistic, “We have 0.009% of deaths,” without directly answering.
Underwood noted that ICE’s acting director had previously admitted under oath that the agency “hopes that there will be no deaths in custody” but has no actual policy to prevent them, and resigned hours later.
Underwood closed by citing a new Human Rights Watch report documenting 52 deaths in ICE custody during Trump’s second term but also pointed out the ICE has not updated its deaths in custody figures since April 28.
“Transparency is not optional,” she said. “There are laws and reporting requirements.”
Watch the full clip here.
