Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin lashed out in a congressional hearing Thursday while being grilled about family separations under the Trump administration.

In a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security hearing, Mullin became irate when ranking member Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said 3,900 children were separated from their families under the first Trump administration.

Mullin interjected, stating, “450,000 kids were lost under the Biden administration — you didn’t say a word about it.”

“Mr. Secretary, do not interrupt,” DeLauro said.

“Don’t you point your finger at me,” Mullin replied, before calling DeLauro a “hypocrite” and accusing her of not being upset about the children he claimed were “lost” under the previous administration.

Trump officials have repeatedly said that hundreds of thousands of children went “missing” under President Joe Biden, though that number has varied in their telling. The 450,000 figure is one that former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem brought up in the past and Mullin himself has repeated. But as several news outlets have pointed out, that number misrepresents what a 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security inspector general stated.

According to the report, Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred custody of more than 448,000 unaccompanied children to the Health and Human Services Department from fiscal 2019 to 2023.

“However, ICE was not able to account for the location of all [unaccompanied minors] who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court,” the report found.

PolitiFact, a fact-checking site operated by the Poynter Institute, reported in March:

Jennifer Podkul, chief of global policy and advocacy at KIND, a nonprofit organization that advocates for unaccompanied minors, said calling the children lost is a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the process and the report. … ICE losing track of unaccompanied minors is likely a reflection of agencies not collaborating, not a child being at risk or a sponsor being a threat, Podkul said.

During their heated exchange, DeLauro urged Chairman Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., to step in.

“Could you put him in his place?” she asked.

“You should be put in your place,” Mullin retorted.

Such testy moments in congressional hearings have become more typical as members of the Trump administration increasingly take defensive stances against Democrats — and some Republicans — seeking to confront them about the federal government’s policies.

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