Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been fired and will be replaced by Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Noem is the first cabinet secretary to leave the Trump administration during his second term.
According to a Trump social media post, Noem will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, the new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere scheduled to be announced shortly.
Now into her controversial second year, Noem faced bipartisan criticism over her leadership of an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, where she deployed 3,000 officers and two U.S. citizens were killed, with Sen. Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski two her strongest critics asking for her resignation.
Noem’s departure comes after spending two days giving testimony to Congress concerning her leadership.
During the hearings she drew fire from both parties over tactics used by ICE, spending at the agency and her broader leadership role. She also received letters from the DHS Inspector General accusing the agency of systematically obstruction the work of that office related to immigrant arrests, airport security and counterintelligence.
Noem was at the center of effort to arrest, detain and deport 1 million people without legal status per years, with fall reports showing 605,000 people deported and a record number of people in detention centers.
It was under her watch that a surge of hiring brought thousands of ICE agents and the proliferation of Border Patrol agents as enforcers throughout the country.
Noem also drew scrutiny on her handle of national disaster relief and resources and her selection of Corey Lewandowski for a DHS special employee advisory role. DHS has consistently been under legal scrutiny from immigration courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, with federal district judges blocking DHS from using wartime powers.
She is the highest-profile departure in recent weeks at the agency, following Madison Sheehan and Tricia McLaughlin.
As her replacement, Mullin will need to be confirmed by the Senate in order to take on the role permanently, and if confirmed, he will advise the president on a wide range of security issues, including being in charge of the Coast Guard and the FEMA, and a prominent role in counterterrorism, aviation security and cybersecurity.