How one Republican could unleash Senate chaos over Kristi Noem

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis threatened to hold up legislative business unless the Department of Homeland Security answers his questions about immigration enforcement in his state.

Zachary Schermele

WASHINGTON – Sometimes, it only takes one influential lawmaker to massively slow the legislative gears in the United States Senate.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, made that fact clear on March 3 as he grilled Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the agency's leadership.

He said he'd asked her a month ago for more information about Operation Charlotte's Web, an immigration enforcement surge launched by DHS late last year in Charlotte that resulted in hundreds of arrests. But he didn't get them, he said.

Until he does, the maverick Republican said he was immediately halting bloc nominations of President Donald Trump's appointees in the Senate. And if he doesn't get the responses he wants in another two weeks, he pledged to up the ante, holding up bill markups and meetings in the influential committees he sits on.

"I will be doing none of the nominating and confirming and markups until such time as I get an answer to these critical questions," Tillis later said on the Senate floor.

The threats were a reminder – amid an escalating war in the Middle East and an ongoing shutdown of DHS – of how even a little bit of GOP criticism of the Trump administration can go a long way, especially in the Senate.

For instance, Tillis, who often breaks with his party to denounce the White House, is arguably the only lawmaker standing between the president's whims and the traditional independence of the Federal Reserve. Tillis has said he will block any of Trump's picks to lead the central bank until the Trump administration ends its investigations of Jerome Powell, the current Fed chief.

Tillis has also been fiercely critical of Noem, particularly since the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota in January. He, unlike most Republicans, has called for her to resign.

DHS did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment about answering Tillis's questions.

Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.