Trump ousts Kristi Noem, names Oklahoma senator as homeland security nominee – World

Kristi Noem, who oversaw US President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown and faced bipartisan criticism in hearings this week, will step down as national security chief at the end of the month.

Trump will tap Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace her, he said on his Truth Social platform, a move that would require confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, became one of Trump’s most prominent Cabinet secretaries with social media posts that portrayed immigrants in harsh terms, highlighting cases of alleged criminals and using scathing language.

In January he faced criticism when he quickly labeled two American citizens shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis as perpetrators of “domestic terrorism.”

Videos that emerged after the deaths undermined the claim by Noem and other Trump officials that the two deceased, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were violent attackers.

Public backlash over the deaths led the Trump administration to take a more targeted approach to immigration enforcement in Minnesota after months of raids in American cities that sparked violent clashes with residents opposed to the crackdown.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives moved to impeach Noem and at least two Republicans in Congress called for her to lose her job after the incidents.

During congressional hearings in March, Democrats and some Republicans criticized Noem for her approach to the immigration crackdown and management of the Department of Homeland Security, including concerns about a $220 million ad campaign in which Noem was heavily featured.

Trump said Reuters on Thursday that he did not approve the advertising campaign.

“I never knew anything about it,” he said in a telephone interview.

The ads prominently featured Noem, including a scene of her on horseback on Mount Rushmore in her home state of South Dakota.

At one of this week’s congressional hearings, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, asked Noem whether Trump had approved the ads.

“Did the president approve in advance your spending $220 million on nationwide television ads in which you are prominently featured?” Kennedy asked Noem.

“Yes sir, we went through the legal processes, we did it correctly,” he responded.

Strong acceptance of Trump’s hardline immigration approach

The personnel change raises questions about whether the Trump administration could try to escalate its mass deportation campaign or take a more targeted approach.

Under Noem’s leadership, masked immigration agents invaded Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., canvassing neighborhoods and Home Depot parking lots in search of potential immigration violators.

Mullin, who spent a decade in the House of Representatives before becoming a senator in 2023, also supports Trump’s hardline immigration agenda. To become DHS secretary, Mullin would need Senate confirmation.

The popularity of Trump’s immigration approach fell as agents detained American citizens and fired tear gas in the streets in an attempt to increase deportations, which last year fell short of the administration’s goal of 1 million per year.

While Noem, 54, was a prominent supporter of Trump’s agenda, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a former Trump aide, controls Trump’s immigration policy.

It was quickly confirmed that Noem would lead the 260,000-employee Department of Homeland Security in January 2025, after Trump took office.

On social media, he referred to immigrants convicted of crimes as “trash,” even as the number of non-criminals arrested by immigration authorities increased during the Trump administration.

He joined immigration enforcement operations in New York City and visited a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where Venezuelan immigrants deported by the Trump administration were being held without charge or access to lawyers.

The number of migrants caught trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally plummeted under Trump’s restrictive policies, a sharp drop after high levels of illegal immigration under former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Noem, mirroring Trump’s agenda, also took steps to cut legal immigration programs and increase background checks. He ended several Temporary Protected Status programs that granted work permits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Venezuela, Haiti and other nations, sparking legal challenges.

After an Afghan immigrant was accused of attacking members of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., Noem said she recommended that Trump impose “a complete travel ban on all the damn countries that have been flooding our nation with murderers, leeches and welfare junkies.”

Critics said Noem demonized immigrants and promoted an immigration enforcement strategy that targeted hard-working immigrants and non-criminal families.

During Noem’s tenure, the number of deaths in immigration detention centers rose to a two-decade high, while staffing in DHS oversight offices was drastically reduced.