President Donald Trump on Thursday fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and said he will nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin.
Trump made the announcement on social media on Thursday, two days after Noem faced a grilling on Capitol Hill from GOP members as well as Democrats.
She’ll continue to be Department of Homeland Security Secretary until the end of the month. Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term. Noem’s departure caps a tumultuous tenure overseeing immigration enforcement tactics that have been met with protests and lawsuits.
Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, questioned why Noem wasn’t fired officially today during a press scrum. “I mean look, Kristi Noem has done a great disservice to the Department of Homeland Security, to what it has stood for, to what has it meant historically,” she said.
Healey said Noem, who also oversaw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was an “absolutely terrible appointment.”
“Under her watch, ICE has made us less safe, not just in Massachusetts, but all around this county. She had no business being in that role in the first place, and I’m glad she’s gone,” said Healey.
Under Noem, ICE detained thousands of immigrants in Massachusetts.
Congressman Seth Moulton has taken a hard line stance for ICE to be abolished.
“Good riddance. Now, she should be prosecuted,” he said via email on Thursday afternoon.
In December he introduced the National Oversight and Enforcement of Misconduct (NOEM) Act, which would permit victims of constitutional violations committed by ICE agents to sue those officers in court. He said then they were operating with near-total immunity.
Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said she believes Noem’s departure won’t slow down immigrant detentions.
“Without change to the abhorrent and militaristic actions of ICE and the Trump administration against the immigrants who help make up our communities, it will not matter who is in charge at DHS,” said Sweet. “MIRA will continue its efforts in advocating to ban new 287(g) agreements, preventing partnerships between local law enforcement and ICE and prohibiting local law enforcement from asking about immigration status.“
Trump says he’ll make Noem a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere.
Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term. Noem’s departure caps a tumultuous tenure overseeing immigration enforcement tactics that have been met with protests and lawsuits.
Noem has faced waves of criticism as she’s overseen Trump’s immigration crackdown, especially since the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement officers. The former South Dakota governor was also criticized over the way her department has spent billions of dollars allocated to it by Congress.
Frustrations over Noem’s execution of the Republican president’s hard-line immigration agenda — particularly her leadership after the shooting deaths of the two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis — as well as her handling of disaster response, paved the way for her downfall. She faced blistering criticism from Democrats, and some Republicans, in Congress hearings this week over those issues and others.
Aside from immigration, Noem also faced criticism — including from Republicans — over the pace of emergency funding approved through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and for the Trump administration’s response to disasters.
Mullin would need to be confirmed by the Senate, but under a federal law governing executive branch vacancies, he would be allowed to serve as an acting Homeland Security secretary as long as his nomination is formally pending.
