WASHINGTON — A tense exchange between Representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a congressional hearing this week laid bare a deeper struggle in Washington: whether the Department of Homeland Security, one of the federal government’s most powerful agencies, remains meaningfully accountable to elected oversight.

The hearing, formally convened to examine global security threats, quickly turned inward. McIver argued that the most serious danger to the homeland was no longer foreign adversaries, but an erosion of public trust in DHS itself — a department she accused of breaking the law, withholding information from Congress, and weaponizing its authority against political opponents and vulnerable communities.

“The threat is coming from inside the building,” McIver said, accusing the secretary of undermining the very principles DHS was created to protect.

The exchange grew increasingly sharp as McIver pressed Noem on the department’s relationship with Congress. Oversight, she emphasized, is not discretionary. It is a constitutional obligation. Yet, she said, DHS under Noem’s leadership had repeatedly treated congressional scrutiny as an inconvenience — delayed, denied, or ignored altogether.

At stake is more than decorum. DHS oversees border enforcement, counterterrorism, surveillance, detention and intelligence operations. Critics have long warned that such expansive authority requires rigorous checks to prevent abuse. When oversight weakens, they argue, the balance between security and democracy becomes dangerously unstable.

Noem rejected McIver’s accusations, insisting that DHS remains focused on enforcing the law and protecting public safety. She pointed to recruitment numbers and public support for the department’s mission as evidence that trust remains intact. But she largely sidestepped McIver’s most pointed questions, prompting repeated interruptions and a procedural refrain familiar to congressional hearings: “I reclaim my time.”

The moment that drew the most attention came when McIver demanded a simple answer: Was President Trump embarrassed by Noem’s tenure, or was this exactly the kind of leadership he wanted at DHS? Noem attempted to pivot, but McIver cut her off. “This is my time to talk, not your time to talk,” she said.

Later, when McIver asked whether using DHS resources to target members of Congress would constitute an abuse of power, Noem denied that such actions were taking place — without directly engaging the hypothetical. “You would have heard me if you stopped talking and listened to my questions,” McIver shot back, a line that quickly circulated online.

But beyond the viral moments, the exchange reflected a more consequential concern shared by many lawmakers and legal scholars: that DHS, born in the aftermath of Sept. 11, has grown into a sprawling institution whose internal culture increasingly resists external constraint.

McIver also criticized Republicans on the committee, accusing them of abandoning their oversight responsibilities in favor of defending the administration. The contrast, she suggested, was stark: one party demanding accountability, the other offering applause for what she described as a failing tenure.

The secretary’s defenders argue that DHS has been unfairly politicized and that aggressive oversight risks undermining morale within an agency tasked with confronting genuine security threats. But McIver’s line of questioning echoed a long-standing principle of American governance: that enforcement power without transparency erodes legitimacy.

The hearing also revived concerns about whether DHS has crossed lines in monitoring or engaging with elected officials. Even the perception that a federal security agency might target members of Congress carries profound implications. In democratic systems, intelligence and enforcement bodies derive their authority from civilian oversight — not the other way around.

McIver framed the issue as structural rather than personal. “This is not just about you,” she told Noem. “This is about an administration that has turned DHS into a political weapon.”

That framing may prove durable. History suggests that democratic erosion rarely begins with dramatic declarations, but with quieter shifts: delayed answers, blurred boundaries, selective enforcement and normalized defiance of oversight.

What the exchange ultimately underscored is that congressional hearings are not merely performances for the public record. They are stress tests — moments designed to reveal how power responds when challenged.

When officials evade, talk over lawmakers or refuse clear answers, those tests take on heightened significance. As McIver made clear, the question facing DHS is not simply whether it can keep Americans safe, but whether it can do so while remaining answerable to the people and institutions it serves.

In that sense, the clash was less about raised voices than about a fundamental democratic expectation: that no agency, however powerful, operates beyond scrutiny — and that trust, once lost, is far harder to restore than authority is to wield.