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 Truth Social that he will nominate Sen. Markwayne Millin (R-Okla.) to take over the job, two days after Noem was grilled on Capitol Hill by Democrats and some Republicans.
Trump said Noem will become a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he 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.
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 during the event.
After the conference ended, Noem thanked Trump 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 was not expecting the call Thursday, but that he is “ready to get started” and will work to “earn everybody’s vote,” regardless of party affiliation.
“When I go into this position, 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.
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.
When the news broke, Republican senators appeared to be congratulating Mullin on the Senate floor as the chamber was conducting business. Meanwhile, 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 on a $200-million ad campaign she oversaw that urged anyone in the U.S. illegally to deport voluntarily.
Noem told the Senate panel on Tuesday that the president approved the campaign, which the White House denied to NBC News.
Early criticism of Noem came last 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.
