WASHINGTON — In a major shakeup of the agency at the center of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, President Trump announced Thursday that he was replacing embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who will step down at the end of the month.
Trump said on his social media website that he will nominate Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to take over the job, two days after Noem was grilled on Capitol Hill by Democrats and some Republicans.
Noem will become a special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative that Trump said would focus on the Western Hemisphere.
Noem, the former South Dakota governor, is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term as president. Her departure comes amid intense scrutiny over immigration enforcement tactics since last year that intensified after the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis by immigration agents, which she called domestic terrorism without evidence.
Those killings led to demands for more accountability within the agency, and disagreement over how to rein in the tactics deployed by federal immigration agents has led to a weeks-long standoff over the agency’s funding.
Since the shutdown, lawmakers from both parties have used a series of contentious oversight hearings to question Noem’s management of the agency. During a hearing Tuesday, the criticism from Republicans was particularly blunt.
“We are an exceptional nation, and one of the reasons we are exceptional is because we expect exceptional leadership, and you’ve demonstrated anything but that,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told Noem.
When Trump announced the shakeup on social media, Noem was speaking at a conference in Nashville. She answered questions from local law enforcement organizations, and did not offer hints that she knew her departure was imminent. She was not asked about her firing.
After the conference ended, Noem thanked Trump on X for her special envoy appointment, a diplomatic position she said will have her working to prevent drugs from coming into the United States.
“I am super excited about this opportunity. It came as not a complete surprise, but it came as a little bit of a surprise,” Mullin told reporters outside the Capitol.
Mullin said he is “ready to get started” and will work to “earn everybody’s vote,” regardless of party affiliation.
“Yes I am a Republican, yes I am conservative, but the Department of Homeland Security is to keep everybody — regardless of whether you support me, if you don’t support me, regardless of what your thoughts are — I am here to enforce the policies that Congress passed,” Mullin said.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) speaks to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol Building on Thursday.
(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
Mullin would need to be confirmed by the Senate, but under federal law is allowed to serve as acting Homeland Security secretary while his nomination is pending.
Mullin would be another Trump loyalist aligned with his immigration agenda. Mullin backed the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and was dubbed the “Senate whisperer” for the Trump agenda by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
A former plumbing company owner and former mixed martial arts fighter, Mullin has served in Congress since 2013. He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and one of the first tribal citizens to serve in the Senate.
When the news broke, Republican senators appeared to congratulate Mullin on the Senate floor. Democratic senators applauded the decision to fire Noem but lamented that she will continue to serve in public office.
“The atrocities she oversaw, the falsehoods she peddled, & the corruption she committed — all richly deserve her discharge,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote on X. “President Trump should have made it explicit, rather than disguising it with another position of public trust.”
Noem was also criticized over how her department spent billions of dollars allocated by Congress.
In the congressional hearings this week, lawmakers questioned her about a $200-million ad campaign she oversaw that heavily featured her urging anyone in the U.S. illegally to deport voluntarily.
Noem told the Senate panel on Tuesday — under penalty of perjury — that the president approved the campaign, which Trump denied to Reuters, saying “I never knew anything about it.”
A day before her firing, Noem faced scrutiny over her relationship with Corey Lewandowski, a Trump ally who has served as a special advisor to her agency.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Culver City) asked whether Noem had “sexual relations” with Lewandowski. The question came after news reports alleged the two had engaged in a romantic relationship and that the dynamic has fueled dysfunction within the agency.
“I am shocked that we are going down and we are peddling tabloid garbage,” Noem said.
Kamlager-Dove said Noem’s lack of a direct answer raised concerns about her having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate and showed a lack of judgment in national security decisions.
Noem’s handling of disaster assistance has also been under scrutiny for months since she imposed a rule requiring that her office review all contracts and grants over $100,000, leading to delays in reimbursements to state and local governments.
The Trump administration has downsized the Federal Emergency Management Agency and pushed for states to handle more disaster relief themselves.
In a hearing Wednesday, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) pointed to a $2.5-million grant for wildfire damage protection, which Northern California communities have been waiting for since June.
“Right now, my constituents are not being well served by your department,” he told her.
Under Noem, the DHS has faced mounting protests and lawsuits over its immigration policies. By March, the agency admitted it had mistakenly deported a Salvadoran man to a notorious mega-prison there despite his protected status.
Amid court proceedings months later, Noem confirmed that she had decided to proceed with the removal of 252 Venezuelan men to the prison in El Salvador despite a federal judge’s order to turn the plane around.
Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who has argued some of the highest-profile cases against the DHS, said Noem’s tenure was marked by “political theater and an astounding defiance of the courts.”
Another shocking moment came in June, as DHS was scaling up raids throughout Los Angeles. During a news conference at the Westwood federal building, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was forced to the ground and handcuffed by federal agents after he interrupted Noem to ask her a question.
“If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question,” Padilla said later, “I can only imagine what they’re doing to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country.”
Padilla reacted to Noem’s ouster as evidence of public pressure working to hold her to account.
“This is why we don’t give up,” he said.
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said Noem’s departure was long overdue.
“Her tenure, as two congressional hearings this week clearly showed, was defined by chaos, cruelty, corruption, and a refusal to take responsibility for the abuses carried out by federal agents under her watch,” she said. “For immigrant communities across the country, her leadership represented a dangerous escalation of policies that treated families and workers as targets rather than as human beings who contribute to and strengthen this nation.”
Salas said the new Homeland Security secretary must ensure transparency, respect the Constitution and treat immigrants with dignity.