DHS Noem has been relocated!
Washington, Mar 5 (EFE).-
President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem will be replaced by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, effective March 31, 2026.
“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,” the president wrote on his Truth Social account.
Former South Dakota Governor Noem had been heavily criticized for her handling of the immigration raid crisis in Minnesota. The raids resulted in the shooting deaths of two US citizens by federal agents, whom Noem accused of “domestic terrorism” without evidence.
Furthermore, on Tuesday, she appeared on Capitol Hill in a controversial intervention where she refused to retract those comments, blamed protesters for the chaos, and defended Trump’s policy of mass deportations.
She was harshly questioned by Democratic senators, as well as Republican Thom Tillis, who called for her resignation and referenced the controversial incident in her book where Noem recounts killing her dog and a goat.
Due to the events in Minnesota, the DHS has been partially shut down since February 14 due to a lack of funding, pending an agreement between Democrats and Republicans on changes to the operational procedures for immigration raids that would unlock the approval of the budget appropriation.
Aside from the controversial Minnesota raids, the pressure on Noem had increased recently due to a contentious and aggressive campaign to publicize her department’s work, which was awarded last year.
It was revealed that her department had declared a border “emergency” to justify awarding a 220-million-dollar contract, without prior bidding, to an entity controlled by the husband of former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
In an interview with the Reuters agency on Thursday, Trump himself claimed to have no knowledge of those contracts.
Mullin, Noem’s replacement, is a Cherokee businessman who won a seat as a senator for Oklahoma in 2023. EFE
acd/dmv/mcd
