This story first appeared on States Newsroom.
President Donald Trump Thursday said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will be leaving the post for a job as a special envoy, following an appearance before a U.S. Senate panel this week that provoked bipartisan criticism of her handling of the department that is tasked with fulfilling the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Trump loyalist who has championed the president’s war against Iran, will lead the Department of Homeland Security, the president wrote on his social media site, TruthSocial.
“I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland,’” Trump wrote, adding that her role ends March 31.
In a social media post, Noem wrote she looked forward to her new role, where she said she will work with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
She said her new position will “build on the partnerships and national security expertise” that she made as DHS Secretary, but did not go into detail.
“I look forward to working with them closely to dismantle cartels that have poured drugs into our nation and killed our children and grandchildren,” she said, adding that the “Western Hemisphere is absolutely critical for U.S. security.”
Trump said her title would be special envoy for the Shield of Americas, “our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere” that will be announced at a conference in Doral, Florida, on Saturday.
As members of Congress and other officials reacted to the sudden news of Noem’s ouster Thursday, the outgoing secretary spoke at a previously scheduled event with local law enforcement leaders at a conference in Nashville.
Noem took questions from the officials in the room, but was not asked about the shakeup and did not address it.
Senate Hearing
In the heated hourslong oversight Tuesday hearing before senators, Republicans grilled Noem over her handling of the awards of no-bid contracts to close allies and her agency’s slow disaster relief response.
Also cited were multiple video recordings that contradicted her statements that two U.S. citizens killed by her federal immigration officers in Minneapolis were “domestic terrorists.”
Senate Democrats have refused to approve funding for the Department of Homeland Security, now at day 19 of a shutdown, unless certain policy changes are made to immigration enforcement tactics.
A vote in the Senate to move forward on approving a funding bill for the agency failed again on Thursday, in a 51-45 vote. Sixty votes are required.
Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, will move to a new role as a special envoy for a new “Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere,” Trump said.
Ad Campaign
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday that Trump was planning to fire Noem after she said during the Senate hearing that a special $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured her was personally signed off on 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 pressured immigrants in the country without legal authority to “self deport.”
A ProPublica investigation found that Noem awarded the contract to the husband of former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
Kennedy asked Noem if the president was aware of the cost of the ad campaign. Noem said Trump knew about it and approved it.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s Thursday story, the president had not agreed to the campaign, and he was frustrated with its self-promoting style.
Kennedy had mused to Noem that the ad campaign was “effective in (boosting) your name recognition.”
Minneapolis Killings
Democrats have called for Noem to step down following the deaths of U.S. citizens in Minnesota, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37.
Noem had approved an aggressive immigration operation, sending more than 2,000 federal immigration agents to the city. The months-long operation in a city with a high Somali refugee population sparked massive protests and community pushback.
Following Pretti’s death, the second, Trump directed White House border czar Tom Homan to take over the operations.
Cabinet Departure
Noem is the first high-profile Cabinet official to leave her role, which she’s held for a little over a year.
A similar inflection point with the Trump administration’s immigration policy occurred in the president’s first term in 2018, when huge controversy was generated when parents were separated from their children at the southern border.
Then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was charged with implementing the policy, which was crafted by Stephen Miller, who is still a top architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
Nielsen eventually resigned from her role months later.
Back to South Dakota?
While the president said Noem will move into another role, the former governor of South Dakota could still have a future in her home state with a potential primary race against Republican Sen. Mike Rounds.
To earn a spot on the June 2 primary ballot, Noem would have to gather nominating petition signatures from 2,171 registered South Dakota voters by March 31.
If that race were to materialize, it would pit two former governors 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 as Rounds already earned a reelection endorsement from Trump in July.
Before she was governor, Noem served in the U.S. House as South Dakota’s lone representative. She could seek a return to that position, because Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson is running for governor.
The leading candidate for the state’s Republican nomination for U.S. House is Attorney General Marty Jackley, who lost to Noem in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary.
Markwayne Mullin
Mullin, if confirmed by the Senate, would be the first Native American to lead DHS. He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation.
Mullin appears to have little experience in homeland security. In the Senate, he does not sit on any committee that oversees or appropriates funds to the agency.
He’ll be tasked with carrying out the president’s campaign promise of mass deportations, along with leading crucial agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, transportation security and cyber security, among other departments.
He would also be taking over an agency that received a separate funding stream from Congress that provides more than $170 billion for immigration enforcement and detention, which he voted for last year.
Mullin will have to leave the Senate in order to run the agency, if confirmed. Another former senator who serves in Trump’s Cabinet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, resigned as Florida’s senator after the Senate confirmed him in a 99-0 vote. Rubio voted for himself before submitting his resignation.
In his time in the House from 2013 to 2023, Mullin sat 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 International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien to a physical fight.
On Appropriations, he chairs the panel that handles funding for the legislative branch, and on the HELP Committee, he chairs the panel on Employment and Workplace Safety.
He would undergo a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where he called the committee chair, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a “freaking snake,” and said he understood why Paul’s neighbor assaulted him, according to an Oklahoma journalist.
Paul’s ribs were broken by his neighbor in the assault in 2017.
Seth Tupper contributed to this report.
