The event comes after President Donald Trump issued a proclamation Friday evening that will require immigrants to prove they will have health insurance or the ability to pay for medical expenses before they are issued a visa. The policy is only the latest of many Trump administration moves to restrict both legal and illegal immigration.

McAleenan argued in a Washington Post interview earlier this month that he lacked control over the messaging from his department. He also said the Trump administration “went too far” when it decided to separate thousands of migrant parents and children at the southwest border in 2018, a move he recommended at the time.

McAleenan tried several times to begin his speech Monday, but protesters repeatedly interrupted him.

“As a career law enforcement professional, I’ve dedicated my career to protecting the right to free speech and all the values we hold dear in America,” he said, attempting to address the disruptions.

iBut protesters quickly interrupted him again, eventually forcing him to leave the stage.

The event’s organizers unsuccessfully tried to convince protesters to allow the speech to proceed.

“Democracy requires dialogue, it requires listening,” said MPI President Andrew Selee.

The liberal group CREDO Action said it took the lead organizing the protest. Georgetown Law students also demonstrated outside the event.

"No Trump henchmen should be given a platform to spread hatred or defend the racist, xenophobic policies put into place by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller," CREDO Action campaign director Nicole Regalado said in a written statement after the action. The group had circulated an open letter days earlier that called on event organizers to rescind McAleenan‘s invitation.

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DHS issued its own response to protesters later in the day and released McAleenan’s prepared remarks.

“Unfortunately the acting secretary and the audience did not get the opportunity to engage in a robust dialogue this morning due to the disruptions of a few activists,” the department said. “Event attendees would have learned more about DHS’s successful strategy to work with international partners to reduce unlawful migration and end the exploitation of children by smugglers and cartels, and then they would have had the opportunity to participate in an unmoderated question and answer session.”

In the prepared remarks, McAleenan argued that a surge of migrant families and children who arrived at the border earlier this year had been driven by a lack of immediate legal consequences. The immigration court backlog has nearly doubled under Trump and now stands at more than a million cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. As a result, immigrants can wait years for the resolution of their cases.

“If we are unable to achieve fair and expeditious immigration results, with due process, and effectively repatriate those without valid claims to remain in the U.S., more will pay smugglers and make the journey and crisis levels of arrivals will continue,“ McAleenan said.

He also touted the Trump administration’s response to the border surge. Border arrests — a metric used to determine illegal crossings — dropped to 51,000 in August, down from a peak of 133,000 in May.

Despite the progress, McAleenan asserted that illegal entries remain at “crisis levels.”