President Donald Trump fired his former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on March 5. The announcement followed scrutiny and questioning of her leadership and of her recent testimony before Congress. Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin is set to replace her after getting praised by the president via social media.
Trump announced the change in the department in a Truth Social post on March 5, saying that “I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland,'” and adding that she “served us well,” according to a CNBC article from March 5. In the same post, he also announced that Noem will be moved to a new position, special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a role tied to a new regional security initiative his administration plans to launch, according to a March 5 TIME article.
Noem’s tenure as head of Homeland Security was marked by very controversial and fatal incidents, including a severe wave of deportations that swept American citizens along with undocumented people and the high-profile deaths of two American protesters by ICE and Border Patrol agents. Beyond those, another moment that particularly caused controversy was a $220 million ad campaign starring Noem herself, promoting voluntary departures by people in the country illegally, according to a Washington Post article from March 5. She defended the ad campaign during her testimony in Washington, D.C., and claimed that Trump was aware of the ad spending. However, Trump publicly contradicted Noem, telling Reuters that he was not aware of the expensive campaign, according to a March 5 BBC article.
Noem now becomes the first cabinet member to be fired in Trump’s second term in office. She was on stage delivering a speech at the Major Cities Conference in Nashville when Trump announced her firing. Now, Mullin, a conservative ally of Trump, gets ready to take over the Department of Homeland Security after getting approved by the Senate in an 8-7 vote on March 22. After receiving scrutiny and backlash over the administration’s handling of the immigration crisis that continues to haunt the nation, Trump decides to make a switch in one of the nation’s more prominent cabinet departments.
