Trump fires Kristi Noem, head of the Department of Homeland Security, after the ICE killings

WashingtonDonald Trump has announced the dismissal of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The firing comes after a wave of outrage against the administration's attempts to justify the Two ICE killings in Minnesota of US citizens. Because they cast Naem out, de factoInstead of admitting a mistake in his anti-immigration campaign, Trump has simply announced his replacement: Markwayne Mullin. "I am pleased to announce that the highly respected U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will be the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026," Trump wrote on Thursday on Truth Social. The Republican patted Noem on the back—"she has done excellent results"—and said she will now lead his "new Western Hemisphere security initiative to be announced Saturday in Doral, Florida."

The dismissal comes as the ICE and Border Patrol (CBP) extrajudicial violence in Minnesota fades into the background while all media attention is focused on the Iran-Contra affair. The timing allows Trump to gloss over the case and avoid mentioning the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, whose cases are still under investigation. The two deaths further eroded the president's popularity, and even caused the His voters will begin to question the indiscriminate use of violence by the officers

Noem's dismissal also coincides with the ongoing DHS shutdown, which began on February 14th after Democrats refused to approve the department's budget unless a series of codes and conduct procedures within the anti-immigration agency were changed. A first step by the Trump administration was to agree to reinstate body cameras for ICE agents deployed in Minnesota, with plans to reinstate them nationwide. All federal agencies had been wearing body cameras since the legislation was passed under Joe Biden's administration, which was repealed by the Republican upon his return to the White House.

Adding to the department's budget impasse is the tense hearing Noem led before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where clear frustration with her leadership was evident among both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. During the session, many Republican congressmen called for Noem's dismissal due to her management.

During her year leading DHS, ICE agents have begun wearing hoods and adopting far more violent practices, which both the Trump administration and Noem herself have justified. The secretary defended the anti-immigration agents who murdered Good and Pretti, even suggesting they were domestic terrorists. This is an accusation Trump also made against both men and for which he has not apologized.

Her dismissal, therefore, is no guarantee that the government's methods will change: the objectives remain the same and Stephen Miller, The White House deputy chief of staff continues to frequent the halls of DHS. Miller is also the director of the National Security Council, an interagency task force remnant of the war on terror, and from there he has been pressuring ICE to achieve daily quotas of 3,000 arrests

North Carolina Republican Congressman Thom Tillis attacked Noem in the audience for her fixation on numbers. "We just want numbers. We want 1,000 [deportations] a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day... because numbers are all that matter, right? Well, no, they're not. Quality is what matters." But if you look at the numbers, the DHS secretary hasn't even been able to meet the target of one million deportations annually, and last year that target wasn't even surpassed.the 685,000 deportations that former President Biden is estimated to have carried out in 2024Trump's first year as president ended with approximately 675,000 deportations, according to the DHS. These figures are opaque—since they cannot be broken down or independently verified—but they are still lower than the numbers achieved by Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.