By Evaristo Lara
Faced with some Democratic complaints pointing to a possible waste of money carried out during Kristi Noem’s time as head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Markwayne Mullin is reviewing some million-dollar contracts signed by the woman whom President Donald Trump removed from her position on March 24.
During an appearance by the head of the DHS before the House of Representatives Committee, Bennie Thompson, representative of Mississippi and top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, referred to some expenses detected by the federal agency while under the former governor of South Dakota.
“We know that warehouses have been purchased for two or three times their appraised value. It appears in public records. There are many other things. A $200 million dollar public announcement with horses, the secretary riding a horse. That’s a waste, “It is wasting money that could be used for the agency’s greater mission,” he said.
The information exposed is related to the budget allocated to the anti-immigrant policy promoted from Washington with the objective of carrying out the largest detention and subsequent deportation of foreigners lacking excellent status detected residing in US territory.
Faced with the increase in detentions by the staff of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), in a few months there was insufficient space to hold foreigners and, as an alternative, inactive warehouses began to be acquired, but at prices that far exceeded their value in the real estate market.
At the same time, expensive anti-immigrant advertising campaigns were carried out for which recently created companies were hired, which are linked to people who came to work for Kristi Noem, a situation that caused discomfort among the government’s detractors.
In fact, several of those promotional campaigns focused more on showing the 54-year-old Republican and left in the background the objective of putting an end to the arrival of more immigrants into the country crossing through the southern border without the necessary documentation.
Given the complaints and To avoid being related to these incidents, Markwayne Mullin stated that some contracts are already being reviewed by the DHS inspector general’s office, while his office postponed approval of others during a more thorough review process.
“We are reviewing the contracts that had not yet been signed, and we proceeded to cancel most of them. We also stopped the continuation of some that were not yet signed.
As to Contracts already signed will remain in force unless the previous Identical Inspection reviews them and finds that they were signed fraudulently. under false circumstances. “I can’t cancel them unless there is a penalty,” he said.
Keep reading:
- Trump removes Kristi Noem from DHS and will appoint Senator Mullin
- Kristi Noem is involved in a scandal generated by a million-dollar government advertising campaign
- DHS evaluates buying a $70 million luxury plane to deport immigrants
