Republican Senator Thom Tillis on Tuesday threatened to bring the Senate’s work to a standstill if Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem failed to respond to inquiries from her office about the immigration crackdown in Charlottetown, North Carolina.
Tillis, who is retiring from the Senate this year, blasted Noem during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, saying Noem would use the senator’s power to retain nominations and prevent bills from reaching the Senate floor.
“If I don’t get an answer that you have a month to respond to, and the remaining answers… starting today, I will notify leadership that I will suspend any group nominations until I get a response. In two weeks, if I don’t get a response, I will deny quorum and markup to as many committees as possible until I get a response,” Tillis said.
The announcement from Tillis, who has repeatedly called on Noem to resign, would represent a rare escalation for any senator — especially one from the president’s own party — in the face of dissatisfaction from Cabinet members. If he follows through on his threat, such a move would hijack much of the Senate’s standard operating procedures.
Since 2025, the Senate has held block votes, or block votes, on some government nominees to overcome narrow margins. At the same time, rejection of committee quorums and markups limits how legislation and individual nominations can advance in the Senate.
Tillis is a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Finance, Banking and Veterans Affairs Committee. Disruption to the work of the latter three could be particularly disruptive in the Senate.
Tillis’s anger reflects Republicans’ growing dissatisfaction with Trump’s embattled Department of Homeland Security chief, who are calling for a change in the tone and tenor of the administration’s immigration crackdown after immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.
In November 2025, ICE launched a crackdown in Charlotte similar to those carried out in Minneapolis and other major cities across the country. While the Department of Homeland Security claimed the operation successfully arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants with criminal records, there were concerns that ICE was accidentally detaining U.S. citizens.
