JACKSON — In a scathing letter, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen to appear before the congressional Committee on Homeland Security.
Thompson, the committee’s chairman, first called on her to appear in a letter he sent on Jan. 4—the day after Democrats took control of Congress. In that letter, he asked her to testify on Feb. 6 about Trump’s demands for a border wall and about the deaths of immigrant children in U.S. custody late last year, which he accused DHS of telling “outright lies” about.
Nielsen, though, told the committee she would be unavailable to appear before Congress due to the government shutdown, which President Trump forced after Democrats refused to give him funding for a border wall. But Trump and Congress ended the shutdown last Friday.
“Your decision to refuse my invitation to testify before the Committee on Homeland Security regarding our nation’s border security on February 6, 2019, is unreasonable and unacceptable,” Thompson wrote in a letter Tuesday. “I strongly urge you to reconsider.”
Nielsen, Thompson noted, made “numerous public appearances and comments regarding border security” during the shutdown.
“Your attempt to use the president’s recent shutdown as an excuse not to testify before Congress prior to the impending shutdown is outrageous,” the Mississippi congressman wrote. “As Secretary of Homeland Security, you should be prepared to testify on border security, the very issue that caused the recent shutdown, any time and certainly prior to the potential February 15 lapse in appropriations.”
