Trump Puts Noem Down Like a Dog

Her tenure—with its illegal deportations, immigrant pain, and killings of U.S. citizens—ends this month.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

KRISTI NOEM—THE HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY who carried out Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, complete with arbitrary arrest goals; who lied repeatedly about the killing of two Minneapolis U.S. citizens and smeared them as domestic terrorists; who wanted to use border funds for a $300 million jet fleet; who posed in front of wrongfully imprisoned Venezuelan men in a Salvadoran mega prison like they were props; and who starred in a $200 million ad campaign ostensibly for recruitment—has been fired, Trump said on Truth Social Thursday.

In his announcement that he would nominate Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a former MMA fighter, to replace her, Donald Trump said, “The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”

Her fake agency demotion aside, it appears that Noem’s disastrous testimony at House and Senate oversight hearings this week, at which both Republicans and Democrats pummeled her like red and blue Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots toys, was what ultimately cost Noem her job.

But it wasn’t just Noem’s response to the bipartisan criticism. Her comments that Trump knew about the $200 million ad campaign that prominently featured her didn’t seem to go down well with the boss. Trump “told senators and advisers he had not signed off on such a campaign,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump told Reuters, “I knew nothing about it.”

One thing about working for Trump, as we have seen for a decade now, is that one needs not just to be ready and willing to debase themselves for the king, but also to brace for ceaseless humiliations. As Trump shared the news of Noem’s departure, she was on stage in Nashville at the Major Cities Conference.

Noem’s departure, while sudden, shouldn’t be surprising. Her position has been unstable for some time. Noem oversaw some of the most scandalous and unpopular policies of Trump’s second term, including the deportation of innocent Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran torture center; the construction of massive holding centers for detainees of all ages, sexes, and medical conditions (without proper treatment); massive ICE operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities, culminating in the invasion of Minneapolis and St. Paul, with the attendant harassment of protesters, threats against media and law-abiding citizens, and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.¹

A big part of Noem’s legacy also will be her alleged corruption: her use of government planes for personal purposes, her abuse of her staff, her unprecedented choice to live in housing usually reserved for the commandant of the Coast Guard—the list goes on. But those offenses pale in comparison to the lawless pain and death the Department of Homeland Security perpetrated at her direction.

On Noem’s watch, Trump’s approval on immigration plummeted, and by December it was becoming clear that she wasn’t long for the job.²

The killings of Good and Pretti were particularly politically damaging for the administration, which had claimed that its mass deportations were necessary to protect Americans from murderers. Noem’s responses to them didn’t help.

At a press conference after Good’s shooting, Noem labeled Good’s interaction with DHS agents—in which she smiled and said, “I’m not mad at you”— an “act of domestic terrorism.” Noem also called Pretti a domestic terrorist, and was pilloried for it. In Trumpian fashion, she refused to retract or apologize for her words.

At the oversight hearing earlier this week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) reflected the indignation and anger of many Americans.

“Well, you stated the conclusion two hours after they were killed that they were domestic terrorists. I wanted to give you an opportunity to correct the record, not just for their family but for everyone in America who believes in the truth and fairness and honesty,” he said.

Raskin tried to force Noem to reconcile her statements with those of her direct reports. “You know, your acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, came before Congress. He said he had no knowledge whatsoever that Alex Pretti and Renee Good were domestic terrorists. None! This is your guy, he said. He admitted that was wrong. Why won’t you do that?”

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NOEM’S REPLACEMENT WILL STILL BE enforcing Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s policies, as Noem pointed out. While the administration has touted fanciful numbers of deportations and self-deportations, nonpartisan groups have found that Trump has fallen short of his goal of one million deportations a year, which is partly why the government has stopped releasing those data.

These obvious policy failures—from Trump’s perspective—came despite thousands of National Guard members in Los Angeles, Americans tear-gassed and hit with rubber bullets, more than 170 U.S. citizens detained just in the first nine months of Trump’s second term, and a string of other abuses and outrages. ProPublica reports that

Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.

While Noem’s tenure is coming to an end March 31, it doesn’t mean she’s out of future possible legal trouble. With the midterm environment looking good for Democrats, a Democratic-led House would likely investigate her tenure next year, looking for instances of law-breaking and corruption.

“Kristi Noem was never qualified to serve as Secretary of DHS. During her time of service she proved that,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who has been at the center of uncovering abuses and aiding children and families at the Dilley detention center in Texas, told me. “The utter corruption uncovered over the past few weeks is astounding. If Democrats take back the House majority next year, there will be much to review about her time in office. People have to be held accountable.”

1. Correction (March 6, 2026 11:49 a.m. EST): As originally published, this sentence erroneously said “first term” instead of “second term.”

2. I reported on December 6 that Noem’s job was in trouble in the New Year, but Trump could possibly let her stay on to steward January and February enforcement operations. The White House responded by placing me and The Bulwark on a childish “naughty list” of news organizations it felt were reporting falsehoods.