Longtime KC congressman signs bill to impeach Kristi Noem over ‘misused power’
Kansas City’s longtime Democratic congressman on Thursday signed onto legislation in support of impeaching Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem following the second killing of an American citizen at the hands of a federal agent.
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who represents Kansas City’s urban core and nearby suburbs, and Rep. Wesley Bell from St. Louis are the only lawmakers in Missouri and Kansas who signed the resolution filed by Rep. Kelly Robin, an Illinois Democrat.
“Our democracy cannot endure if those at the highest levels of government are allowed to operate above the law or beyond consequence,” Cleaver said in a statement on Thursday.
The resolution accuses Noem, who has overseen the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on American cities, with “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It raises a series of allegations against Noem and her federal agency, including violence against U.S. citizens, barring lawmakers from visiting immigration facilities and using her position for personal gain.
“At its core, this is about right and wrong,” Cleaver said. “It is about whether we are willing to meet the moment with integrity or whether we will avert our eyes while power is misused and lives are diminished.”
Cleaver’s decision comes roughly a week after he and his Democratic colleagues in Missouri and Kansas voted against legislation to fund DHS. The legislation passed the House on a vote of 220 to 207.
The funding package has roiled Congress amid outrage over the Trump administration’s use of federal immigration agents to quell dissent in cities across the country. The recent Minneapolis shooting deaths of former Kansas City resident Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti have sparked calls to defund ICE, the immigration agency at the center of the chaos.
While the nation watches the unraveling in Minnesota, the political debate surrounding immigration enforcement has fallen along predictable party lines in Kansas and Missouri.
A day after Cleaver signed onto the resolution to impeach Noem, U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, gave a speech on the Senate floor that defended ICE. He attacked Democrats and framed the fight over immigration policy as “a debate about whether the United States remains a nation or not.”
“Abolish ICE, they say. Defund ICE. Pick your slogan, it doesn’t matter,” Schmitt said. “It’s all part of the same project: open borders and uncontrolled, unvetted, unlimited mass immigration.”
But for Cleaver, who was one of more than 150 lawmakers who signed the legislation to impeach Noem, Congress has the obligation to act when those in power abuse it.
“I choose to stand on the side of accountability, justice and the enduring promise of our Republic – if we can keep it,” he said.
This story was originally published January 30, 2026 at 1:14 PM.
