Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference in Nashville, July 18, 2025, to discuss immigrant arrests during recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspections. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Thursday that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem will leave the post to take a job as special envoy, following an appearance this week before a U.S. Senate panel that prompted bipartisan criticism of her handling of the department tasked with carrying out the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Trump loyalist who supported the president’s war on Iran, will lead the president’s Department of Homeland Security he wrote on his social media site TruthSocial.
“Thank you Kristi for her service on Homeland,” Trump wrote, adding that her role ends on March 31.
In a social media post, Noem wrote that she is looking forward to her modern role as special envoy of the modern “Western Hemisphere Security Initiative.”
In this role, she will work with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, she said, adding that her modern position “will build on the partnerships and national security expertise” she gained as DHS secretary, but did not go into details.
“I look forward to working closely with them to dismantle the cartels that have poured drugs into our nation and killed our children and grandchildren,” she said, adding that “the Western Hemisphere is absolutely critical to U.S. security.” Trump said her title would be special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, “our new Western Hemisphere security initiative,” which will be announced Saturday at a conference in Doral, Florida.
While members of Congress and other officials reacted to the sudden news of Noem’s ouster on Thursday, the outgoing secretary spoke at a previously scheduled meeting event with local law enforcement leaders at a conference in Nashville.
Noem answered questions from officials present, but he was not asked about the shocks and did not comment on them.
IN social media postMullin said he was grateful for the nomination and, if confirmed, would support Trump’s “mission to protect the American people and defend the homeland.”
“I look forward to gaining the support of my colleagues in the Senate and carrying out President Trump’s mission alongside the Department’s many competent agencies and the thousands of patriots who keep us safe every day,” he said.
Senate hearing
During heated, hours-long surveillance at Tuesday’s hearing before senators, Republicans questioned Noem about giving contracts to close allies without a bid and her agency’s ponderous response to disaster relief.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina criticized Noem for a full 10 minutes, criticizing her for a policy she introduced requiring her to approve disaster relief funds in excess of $100,000, which he said created a bottleneck in approving funds for his state as it recovers from Hurricane Helene.
He slammed her leadership at DHS as a “disaster” and said it showed the same impoverished decision-making that led her to shoot her 14-month-old dog named Cricket, which she detailed in her 2024 memoir.
After the president announced Thursday that he was nominating Mullin to lead DHS, Tillis expressed his support in a social media post.
“Senator Markwayne Mullin is a great man and an excellent choice to lead DHS, restoring competence and refocusing efforts on rapidly distributing disaster relief, maintaining border security and deporting violent illegal immigrants,” Tillis said. “Another big positive: he likes dogs.”
It also cited numerous videos that contradicted her claims 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 in its 19th day of shutdown, unless some changes are made to immigration enforcement tactics. On Thursday, a vote in the Senate to advance the agency funding bill failed again by a 51-45 vote. Sixty votes are needed.
Advertising campaign
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Trump plans to fire Noem after she said during a Senate hearing that a $220 million special advertising campaign in which she featured prominently was personally signed by the president.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy questioned Noem over her decision to award a no-bid contract for an advertising campaign in which she pressured immigrants in the country without legal rights to “self-deport.”
ProPublica investigation found that Noem awarded the contract to the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
Kennedy asked Noem if the president was aware of the costs of the advertising campaign. Noem said Trump knew this and accepted it.
According to Thursday’s Wall Street Journal report, the president balked at the campaign and was frustrated by its self-promotional style.
Kennedy told Noem that the ad campaign “effectively (increases) your name recognition.”
Homicides in Minneapolis
Democrats called on Noem to step down following the deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, in Minnesota.
Noem authorized an aggressive immigration operation, sending more than 2,000 federal immigration agents to the city. The month-long operation in a city with a immense Somali refugee population sparked mass protests and community opposition.
After Pretti’s second death, Trump ordered White House border czar Tom Homan to take over the operation.
Cabinet leaving
Noem is the first high-profile Cabinet official to leave the position she 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 the separation of parents from children at the southern border sparked huge controversy.
Then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was accused of implementing a policy developed by Stephen Miller, who continues to be the chief architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy. Nielsen ultimately stepped down from her role a few months later.
Back to South Dakota?
Although the president has said Noem will move on to another position, the former South Dakota governor may still have a future in her home state given a potential primary against Republican Sen. Mike Rounds.
To win a spot in the June 2 primary election, Noem would have to collect petition signatures from 2,171 registered South Dakota voters by March 31.
If this race were to materialize, it would pit two former governors against each other. Rounds was South Dakota’s governor from 2003 to 2011, and Noem served from 2019 until last year, when she resigned and joined Trump’s cabinet.
However, such a race would be an uphill battle for her as Rounds has already secured re-election support from Trump in July.
Before becoming governor, Noem was South Dakota’s lone representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. She could seek to return to the position because Republican Dusty Johnson is running for governor.
The leading candidate for the Republican nomination for the state’s House of Representatives is Attorney General Marty Jackley, who lost to Noem in the 2018 Republican primary for governor.
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 serve on any committees that oversee or appropriate funds for the agency.
He will be tasked with implementing the president’s promise of mass deportations, working with leading key agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, transportation security, and cybersecurity, among others.
He will also take 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.
If confirmed, Mullin would have to leave the Senate to lead the agency. Another former senator in Trump’s cabinet, Rubio, resigned as Florida senator after being confirmed by the Senate in 99-0 votes. Rubio voted for himself before resigning.
From 2013 to 2023, Mullin served on the Energy and Commerce, Transportation, and Infrastructure and Natural Resources committees.
In the Senate, he serves on the Appropriations, Armed Services, Indian Affairs, and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees.
At the 2023 HELP Committee hearing, Mullin questioned President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O’Brien for a physical fight.
On appropriations, he chairs the panel on legislative funding and on the HELP Committee he chairs the panel on employment and workplace safety.
He was scheduled to undergo a confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he called the committee chairman, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a “freak snake” and said he understood why Paul’s neighbor attacked him, according to a journalist from Oklahoma.
Paul’s ribs were broken by his neighbor attack in 2017
Seth Tupper contributed to this report.
