President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was replacing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), ending a turbulent tenure for the former South Dakota governor marked by an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and contentious appearances before Congress.
Mullin will begin his tenure on March 31, Trump wrote on Truth Social. His permanent appointment requires Senate confirmation.
“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,” Trump wrote. “I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
Noem took hold of the department in January 2025, where she spearheaded the government’s crackdown on immigration. Those efforts were often challenged in court over subverting detainees’ due process rights.
The scrutiny came to a head in January after an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis led to the killing of two U.S. citizens (Renée Good and Alex Pretti) and during hearings before House and Senate committees this week, where Noem defended elements of her record to a bipartisan group of skeptical lawmakers.
Trump was reportedly frustrated by Noem’s claim on Capitol Hill that the president signed off on an $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured Noem on horseback riding through South Dakota, one that partly relied on a firm run by former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin’s husband.
Noem defended the process that resulted in the firm’s employment, saying it was “all done correctly, all done legally,” but Trump told Reuters that “I never knew anything about” the campaign.
Noem’s tenure also helped induce an editing change for CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” After the department criticized CBS News for editing Noem’s comments on migrant Kilmar Armando Ábrego García for the aired version of the interview, the network said it would only broadcast live or live-to-tape interviews on the show.
