U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday fired Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, who will leave office effective March 31, 2026, and will be replaced by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin.
“The current secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us effectively and has achieved numerous spectacular results (especially at the border!), will become special envoy for Shield of the Americas, our new Western Hemisphere security initiative (Washington’s term for the Americas) that we will announce on Saturday in Doral, Florida,” the president wrote on his Truth Social account.
Trump fires Kristi Noem
Noem, former governor of South Dakota, was highly questioned for her handling of the immigration raid crisis in the state of Minnesota, which resulted in the shooting deaths by federal agents of two U.S. citizens, whom she herself accused of “domestic terrorism” without evidence.
Moreover, just this week he had appeared on Capitol Hill, in a controversial speech in which he refused to retract those comments and in which he blamed protesters for the chaos and defended Trump’s mass deportation policy.
She was harshly questioned by Democratic senators and also by Republican Thom Tillis, who called for her resignation and recalled the controversial episode in her book in which Noem recounted how she had killed her dog and a goat.
Precisely because of what happened in Minnesota, the DHS has been partially closed for lack of funds since February 14 while waiting for Democrats and Republicans to agree on changes in the operational processes of the immigration raids that would unblock the approval of the budget item.
Aside from the controversial raids in Minnesota, pressure on Noem has been mounting in recent days over a controversial and aggressive campaign to publicize her department’s work awarded last year.
It has been revealed that his portfolio championed a border “emergency” to justify the no-bid award of the campaign, valued at some $220 million, to an entity controlled by the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
In an interview granted to Reuters, Donald Trump himself assured that he had no knowledge of these contracts.
Mullin, Noem’s replacement, is a businessman of Cherokee blood who in 2023 won a senatorial seat for Oklahoma.
Filed under: Trump fires Kristi Noem
With information from EFE