Watch: Kennedy asks Noem about using taxpayer money for an ad campaign that prominently features her

Sen. John Kennedy, R-Los Angeles, asked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at an oversight hearing Tuesday how she justified using $220 million to run national TV ads that prominently feature her if she was concerned about not wasting taxpayer money.

Watch Kennedy and Noem’s statements in the video player above.

Noem said President Donald Trump tasked her with “getting the message” to people who are in the United States illegally that “they need to leave or we will arrest them and deport them, and they will not have the opportunity to come back to America the right way.”

He watches: Noem testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on DHS surveillance

Noem, who took questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, repeated her claim that these ads have been “very effective.”

To clarify, Kennedy asked if Trump knew Noem was pursuing this ad campaign.

The minister said: “Yes, sir, we have gone through the legal procedures.”

Noem’s agency has witnessed unrest and public anger in recent days. The shooting of two US citizens by federal officers in Minneapolis sparked weeks of protests in the Twin Cities area. Trump officials, including Noem, accused the two victims — Renee Judd and Alex Peretti — of committing acts of “domestic terrorism.”

But bystander videos challenged the administration’s narrative that high-profile figures were shot and documented DHS deploying other aggressive tactics. Greater scrutiny by Democrats of the ways the Trump administration is implementing its mass deportation agenda has led to a decline in funding for the agency and a partial government shutdown.

Lawmakers in Congress have yet to reach an agreement to fund the department, though there are areas of bipartisan agreement, such as body camera requirements for immigration enforcement officers.