Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference in Nashville on July 18, 2025, to discuss immigrant arrests during recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will leave her post for a job as a special envoy after appearing before a U.S. Senate panel this week that drew bipartisan criticism of her handling of the department tasked with carrying out the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Trump loyalist who has championed the president’s war on Iran, will lead the president’s Department of Homeland Security wrote on his social media page TruthSocial.
“I thank Kristi for her service on ‘Homeland,'” Trump wrote, adding that her role ends March 31.
As members of Congress and other officials reacted to the sudden news of Noem’s ouster on Thursday, the outgoing secretary spoke at a prearranged time Event with local law enforcement at a conference in Nashville.
Noem answered questions from officials in the room but was not asked about or addressed the upheaval.
Senate hearing
In Tuesday’s heated, hour-long oversight hearing Before senators, Republicans questioned Noem about her handling of awarding no-bid contracts to close allies and her agency’s sluggish pace of disaster relief.
It also cited several video footage that contradicted her statements that two U.S. citizens killed by her federal immigration agents in Minneapolis were “domestic terrorists.”
Senate Democrats have refused to approve funding for the Department of Homeland Security, now in its 19th day of shutdown, unless certain policy changes are made to immigration enforcement tactics. A Senate vote to approve a funding bill for the agency failed again Thursday by a vote of 51-45. 60 votes are required.
Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, will take on a novel role as special envoy for a novel “security initiative in the Western Hemisphere,” Trump said.
advertising campaign
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday that Trump planned to fire Noem after she said during the Senate hearing that a special $220 million advertising campaign in which she played a prominent role had been personally approved by the president.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy questioned Noem about her decision to award a no-bid contract for the ad campaign in which she urged immigrants in the country without legal authority to “self-deport.”
A ProPublica investigation noted that Noem awarded the contract to the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
Kennedy asked Noem if the president was aware of the cost of the advertising campaign. Noem said Trump knew about it and approved of it.
According to Thursday’s Wall Street Journal report, the president had not endorsed the campaign and was frustrated by its self-promotional style.
Kennedy had mused to Noem that the ad campaign “effectively increases your name recognition.”
Minneapolis murders
Democrats have called on Noem to resign after US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, died in Minnesota.
Noem had authorized an aggressive immigration crackdown, sending more than 2,000 federal immigration agents to the city. The months-long operation in a city with a high proportion of Somali refugees triggered massive protests and resistance among the population.
After Pretti’s death, Trump directed White House border czar Tom Homan to take over operations.
Cabinet departure
Noem is the first senior Cabinet official to leave the post she has held for just over a year.
A similar turning point in the Trump administration’s immigration policy occurred during the president’s first term in 2018, when heated controversy erupted when parents were separated from their children at the southern border.
Then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was tasked with implementing the policy, which was crafted by Stephen Miller, who remains one of the main architects of the Trump administration’s immigration policy. Nielsen ultimately resigned from her position months later.
Back to South Dakota?
While the president said Noem would take on a different role, the former South Dakota governor could still have a future in her home state with a possible primary race against Republican Sen. Mike Rounds.
To secure a spot in the June 2 primary, Noem would need to collect nomination signatures from 2,171 registered voters in South Dakota by March 31.
If this race comes to fruition, two former governors would compete against each other. Rounds was governor of South Dakota from 2003 to 2011, and Noem served from 2019 until last year, when she resigned to join Trump’s Cabinet.
However, such a race would be an uphill battle for her since Rounds had already earned re-election approval by Trump in July.
Before becoming governor, Noem was South Dakota’s only representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. She could seek a return to that position as Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson is running for governor.
The leading candidate for the state’s Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives is Attorney General Marty Jackley, who lost to Noem in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary.
Markwayne Mullin
If confirmed by the Senate, Mullin would be the first Native American to lead DHS. He is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation.
Mullin appears to have little experience in homeland security. In the Senate, he does not sit on a committee that oversees the agency or allocates resources to it.
He will be tasked with implementing the president’s campaign promise on mass deportations, along with leading key agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security and Cybersecurity, and other departments.
He would also take over an agency that received a separate funding source from Congress that provides more than $170 billion for immigration enforcement and detention, which he voted for last year.
During his time in the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2023, Mullin served on the Energy and Commerce, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Natural Resources Committees.
In the Senate, he sits on the Appropriations, Armed Services, Indian Affairs and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees.
During a 2023 HELP Committee hearing, Mullin challenged Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, to a physical fight.
In the area of appropriations, he chairs the committee that deals with the financing of the legislature and in the HELP committee he chairs the committee on employment and occupational safety.
He would undergo a confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he called the committee chairman, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a “fucking snake” and said he understood why Paul’s neighbor attacked him. According to an Oklahoma journalist.
Paul’s ribs were broken by his neighbor the attack in 2017.
Seth Tupper contributed to this report.
