Trump fires 'ICE Barbie' Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary - The Times

Kristi Noem has been fired from her role as homeland security secretary, President Trump announced on Thursday.

Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, will replace Noem from March 31, the president wrote in a Truth Social post. Noem will become the “special envoy for the shield of the Americas”, which he described as a “new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere” that will be unveiled on Saturday.

Noem’s termination comes as funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains in limbo, with politicians and the public alike expressing outrage over the government’s handling of immigration operations.

• Sign up for The Times’s weekly US newsletter

As he announced her departure, Trump praised Noem for her “spectacular results” in her post. “The current secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)… I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”

In her first public remarks since Trump’s announcement, Noem praised the “historic accomplishments” at the DHS and thanked the president for appointing her to the new position. She said she looked forward to working closely with Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence, to “dismantle cartels that have poured drugs into our nation and killed our children and grandchildren”.

“The western hemisphere is absolutely critical for US security,” she said. “In this new role I will be able to build on the partnerships and national-security expertise I forged over the last 13 months as secretary of homeland security.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump “looks forward to [Noem] continuing to serve in her new, important role as special envoy for the shield of the Americas”.

In her role, Noem oversaw Trump’s deportation agenda that aims to deport one million people each year. Her department also supervised the president’s crackdowns in major US cities, including Los Angeles, New Orleans, Chicago and Minneapolis.

The surge of agents in Minneapolis became a political flashpoint after two US citizens were shot dead by federal officers in January. Immediately after Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were killed, Noem accused them of committing “domestic terrorism”.

She was asked about those comments during testimony before Congress this week. She replied that the investigations were continuing and said: “What happened in Minnesota in those two incidents was an absolute tragedy … I offer my condolences to those families.”

Noem was also questioned about her alleged romantic relationship with a senior DHS adviser, Corey Lewandowski. When a Democratic congresswoman asked Noem if she had “sexual relations” with Lewandowski, she dismissed the question as “tabloid garbage”. Both Noem and Lewandowski are married and have for years vehemently denied claims of an affair.

Last month she and Lewandowski switched planes due to a maintenance issue. After realising that her blanket hadn’t been transferred to the second aircraft, the pilot was fired and told to take a commercial flight home, The Wall Street Journal reported.

• Kristi Noem ‘fired pilot for forgetting her blanket’

Noem is no stranger to public scrutiny. As DHS chief she was criticised for wearing a Rolex watch while standing in front of a row of inmates at a notorious prison in El Salvador and earned the nickname “ICE Barbie” for her glamorous appearance as she oversaw immigration raids.

Before being picked to lead the DHS, Noem served in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019, when she became governor of South Dakota. In that role she was banned from seven out of nine Native American reservations in her home state after she alleged that tribal leaders were benefiting from cartel activity on their lands.

In 2024 she made headlines after she boasted about killing her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, in her memoir. In spite of widespread criticism, she defended the anecdote. “We love animals but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” she wrote in a social-media post at the time.

The first time Noem met Trump, in 2018, he told her it was his dream to have his face on Mount Rushmore in her state. Two years later she had a four-foot-long replica of the monument made for him with his face as the fifth president in the company of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln.

In the wake of Trump’s announcement John Bolton, Trump’s US national security adviser during his first term, told Times Radio that her departure suggested Trump was “taking the garbage out”. He called Noem “totally incompetent”.

Bolton also addressed her replacement. Before Mullin served in both the House and the Senate he was a MMA fighting champion. He also operated his family business, Mullin Plumbing, and founded several other companies.

“He comes from a business background. I think he would take that approach in trying to manage the huge operations of the Homeland Security Department,” Bolton said. He noted that the Oklahoma senator was a “Trump loyalist” and his departure from the Senate would leave another Republican vacancy.