Donald Trump’s immigration offensive will have a new face. The U.S. president announced Thursday that he has dismissed Kristi Noem from her post as secretary of Homeland Security. The Republican stated that Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma will take over the position at the head of the Department of Homeland Security starting March 31. The dismissal of the official — the first departure from Trump’s Cabinet — comes after the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration agents and while the department remains unfunded.
Trump announced the decision in a post on his social media platform Truth Social: “I am pleased to announce that the highly respected United States senator from the great state of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” he posted.
Trump added that Noem “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.”
The president then praised Mullin and paid tribute to himself. “Serving 10 years in the United States House of Representatives, and three in the Senate, Markwayne has done a tremendous job representing the wonderful people of Oklahoma, where I won all 77 out of 77 Counties — in 2016, 2020, and 2024!” he said in the post on Truth Social. “A MAGA warrior, and former undefeated professional MMA fighter, Markwayne truly gets along well with people, and knows the wisdom and courage required to advance our America First agenda.”
The message continued: “As the only Native American in the Senate, Markwayne is a fantastic advocate for our incredible Tribal communities. Markwayne will work tirelessly to keep our border secure, stop migrant crime, murderers, and other criminals from illegally entering our country, end the scourge of illegal drugs and, make America safe again. Markwayne will make a spectacular Secretary of Homeland Security.”
The change in leadership at the Department of Homeland Security — the agency that oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the feared enforcement arm of the White House’s immigration campaign — comes after several months of controversy and criticism over Noem’s handling of the role. She has been responsible for enforcing the president’s controversial immigration policy, including his goal of carrying out the “largest deportation in history,” and violent migrant detentions.
Calls for Noem to be removed have been increasing since early January, when ICE agents shot and killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis who was protesting the massive immigration operation launched in the state of Minnesota, which involved more than 3,000 agents. The death of Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet, sparked protests across the country. After the incident, Noem defended the actions of the agent involved, as did the rest of the Trump administration, and labeled Good a “domestic terrorist.”
Just two weeks later, agents from the Border Patrol, another immigration agency under the DHS, shot and killed a second U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, also in Minneapolis. Although both incidents were recorded on video by witnesses in ways that challenged the official account, in Pretti’s case, Noem repeated the same accusation she made against Good and blamed the victim for his death.
Meanwhile, calls for her removal grew, gaining support not only from Democrats but also from some Republicans. According to national media reports, in recent weeks those calls began to come from within the Trump administration itself. According to a report by Politico, Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, was one of People who pressured for Noem to be removed from the post. Trump sent Homan to Minneapolis last month to try to control the crisis that the tensions in the city over the two deaths had created for his government. On February 12, he announced that the immigration operation in Minnesota had concluded.
The president’s patience seems to have finally reached its limit this week. Noem appeared before the Senate on Tuesday. The hearing was controversial — not only because she refused to apologize for calling Good and Pretti “terrorists,” but also because she claimed that the president had approved television ads that spent millions of dollars promoting her nomination as DHS secretary. In statements to the national press, the White House denied that Trump had greenlit the ad campaign; in fact, they said Noem took advantage of her position to prepare for her future political career.
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