Kristi Noem, who oversaw the aggressive crackdown on immigration led by President Donald Trump and faced bipartisan criticism in hearings this week, will leave the post as head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at the end of the month.
Trump announced he would nominate Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace her, in a move requiring Senate confirmation.
Noem, former governor of South Dakota, became one of the most prominent members of Trump’s cabinet, using social media to portray immigrants in harsh terms, highlighting cases of alleged criminals and employing virulent language.
In January, Noem was criticized for quickly labeling two American citizens, shot dead by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, as responsible for “domestic terrorism.” Videos released after the deaths contradicted Noem’s and other Trump administration officials’ claims, indicating that the two deceased — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were not violent aggressors.
The public reaction to the deaths led the Trump administration to adopt a more targeted approach to immigration enforcement in Minnesota, after months of operations in American cities that resulted in violent clashes with residents opposed to the crackdown.
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives called for Noem’s impeachment, and at least two Republicans in Congress urged her to leave the post after the incidents. During congressional hearings this week, Democrats and some Republicans criticized Noem for her approach to immigration enforcement and for DHS management, including questions about a $220 million advertising campaign that heavily featured her image.
Trump told Reuters on Thursday that he did not approve of the advertising campaign.
“I never knew anything about it,” he said in a telephone interview.
The ads highlighted Noem, including a scene in which she appears on horseback on Mount Rushmore, in her home state of South Dakota.
Strong adherence to Trump’s hardline stance on immigration
The personnel shift raises questions about whether the Trump administration will seek to intensify the mass deportation effort or retreat to a more targeted approach. Under Noem’s leadership, masked immigration agents conducted operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, canvassing neighborhoods and Home Depot parking lots for potential immigration violators.
Mullin, who spent a decade in the House before becoming a senator in 2023, also supports Trump’s hardline immigration agenda. To take command of the DHS, he will need Senate confirmation.
The popularity of Trump’s immigration policy has waned as agents detained American citizens and sprayed tear gas in the streets in attempts to widen deportations, which last year fell short of the government’s 1 million-per-year target.
Although Noem, 54, has been a major advocate of Trump’s agenda, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump adviser, continues to control the administration’s immigration policy.
Noem was quickly confirmed to lead the DHS, with 260,000 employees, in January 2025, after Trump took office. On social media, she frequently referred to immigrants convicted of crimes as “scoundrels,” even as the number of non-criminals detained by immigration authorities rose under her watch.
She participated in immigration enforcement operations in New York City and visited a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where Venezuelan immigrants deported by the Trump administration were held without formal charges or access to lawyers.
The number of immigrants detained trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted under Trump’s restrictive policies, after high levels of illegal immigration during the tenure of former Democratic President Joe Biden.
Noem also took steps to reduce legal immigration programs and expand enforcement. She ended several Temporary Protected Status programs that granted work permits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Venezuela, Haiti and other countries, prompting legal challenges.
After an Afghan immigrant was accused of attacking members of the National Guard in Washington, Noem stated that she had recommended to Trump “a total travel ban for all countries that are flooding our nation with killers, leeches and rights junkies.”
Critics accuse Noem of demonizing immigrants and promoting an immigration enforcement strategy that targets workers and families with no criminal records.
During her tenure, the number of deaths in immigrant custody reached the highest level in two decades, while the teams of DHS watchdog offices were drastically reduced.
