Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been fired by Donald Trump, ending her controversial 13-month tenure at the agency behind his mass deportation agenda that has seen tens of thousands of immigrants removed from the U.S., led to chaos in American cities and the deaths of at least three citizens.
The president made his announcement on Truth Social moments before Noem appeared at a law enforcement conference in Nashville Thursday afternoon. She reportedly learned that she was being removed from the role moments before taking the stage.
Noem has “served us well,” the president wrote. She will be named “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” according to the president, who described the effort as “our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.”
Trump has nominated Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace her. Her departure is effective March 31.
The new initiative will be formally announced Saturday, according to Trump. “I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland,’” he wrote.
Mullin, a 48-year-old former MMA fighter who has been in the Senate since 2023, told The Independent he is “excited about the opportunity.”
“It's an honor to be nominated,” he said Thursday. “We're excited about it, we’re excited to get to work, but we still got the nomination process.”
Mullin, a member of the Cherokee Nation, would be the first Native American to serve as DHS secretary.
Trump hailed Mullin as a “MAGA warrior” who “truly gets along well with people and knows the wisdom and courage required to advance our America First agenda.”
Noem is the first Cabinet member to be forced out of the administration since Trump returned to the White House last year. The former South Dakota governor was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 59-34 last January.
She appeared at the Sergeant Benevolent Association Major Cities Conference at the same time Trump posted on Truth Social, but she did not address her firing in her remarks. She mentioned that she would be with Trump in Miami this weekend.
In a statement posted on X, Noem thanked the president and said she looks forward to working with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “dismantle cartels that have poured drugs into our nation and killed our children and grandchildren.”
“The Western Hemisphere is absolutely critical for U.S. security,” she said. “In this new role, I will be able to build on the partnerships and national security expertise I forged over the last 13 months as Secretary of Homeland Security.”
Under Noem’s leadership, DHS secured a mammoth budget to expand detention centers and rapidly hire federal immigration enforcement officers who are accused of surging into American cities with brutal force and jailing tens of thousands of people into detention camps across the country.
She is a defendant in countless lawsuits against the administration’s attempts to rapidly arrest, detain and deport tens of thousands of people.
Initial reports of her imminent departure followed two days of combative hearings in Congress this week, where the secretary faced frustration from Democrats and Republicans over the fatal shootings of two protesters in Minnesota earlier this year.
Noem baselessly accused the victims — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — of committing “domestic terrorism” before any law enforcement agency investigated.
Trump-aligned Republican Senator John Kennedy joined Democrats this week in trying to get the secretary to answer why she would baselessly accuse American citizens of domestic terrorism after her officers shot them at point-blank range.
She was also grilled over her handling of multi-million dollar contracts for an ad campaign in which she was prominently featured.
Kennedy said he was “troubled” that DHS spent more than “a fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars in taxpayer money” on Noem’s ad campaign, which she called “effective.”
“They were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy shot back.
The secretary was also unable to explain how a company connected to her own spokesperson landed a lucrative contract for work connected to that campaign. That spokesperson, now-former assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin, resigned last month.
Trump said he did not sign off on the $220m ad campaign, one day after Noem testified that the president supported it. “I never knew anything about it,” the president told Reuters Thursday.
Those contracts appeared to be the final straw for the president.
Kennedy told reporters Thursday that Noem was “deader than fried chicken.”
The president’s announcement also arrived in the middle of the ongoing funding lapse at DHS. Democrats blocked a spending bill that they say does not go far enough to restrain immigration officers after Congress gave ICE billions of dollars to build detention centers and hire a small army of new recruits last year.
Dozens of Democratic members of Congress and at least two Republicans previously called on Noem to resign or face impeachment.
Trump, who met with Noem at the White House in January amid growing calls for her resignation after federal agents killed Good and Pretti in Minneapolis, had not previously suggested her job was at risk. The president insisted Noem was “doing a very good job,” he told reporters at the time.
In the weeks that followed, Noem has come under heightened scrutiny for actions in office, including questions about her close relationship with Corey Lewandowski, a chief adviser serving as a special government employee.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, tore into Noem on Tuesday following reports that she had a pilot fired when her “blankie” was left on a plane, only for the pilot to be rehired when Lewandowski realized there was no one else who could fly the jet.
Noem has denied the report.
“Trump had no choice but to fire her,” Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote Thursday, one day after Noem appeared before the committee.
“Her tenure was marked by systematic constitutional violations, cruelty, corruption and deadly mismanagement,” they wrote. “That’s her legacy. The next Homeland Secretary has a lot of work to do to transform this lawless masked agency and regain the public’s trust.”
Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who spent several interrupted minutes during a Senate oversight hearing raging at Noem with a long list of grievances, said he welcomes Mullin’s nomination.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Tillis compared Noem’s tenure at the agency to her anecdote about killing a 14-month-old dog and then having “the audacity to say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices.”
Mullin “is a great guy and a great choice to lead DHS, restore competence, and refocus efforts on quickly distributing disaster aid, keeping the border secure, and targeting violent illegal immigrants for deportation,” Tillis wrote Thursday.
“Another big positive: he likes dogs.”
Eric Garcia contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
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