Trump fires Kristi Noem as DHS chief, names Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace her

By Ximena Bustillo

Thursday, March 5, 2026 • 2:20 PM EST

President Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and said Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma would replace her.

Noem "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 posted on social media. "I thank Kristi for her service at 'Homeland.'"

Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave the Trump administration in Trump's second term. The announcement comes after Noem spent two days being grilled by lawmakers in Congress over her leadership.

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Mullin has been a defender of the president and his immigration agenda.

"A MAGA Warrior, and former undefeated professional MMA fighter, Markwayne truly gets along well with people, and knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Advance our America First Agenda," Trump said in his post, highlighting Mullin's position as the only Native American in the Senate. "Markwayne will make a spectacular Secretary of Homeland Security. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Mullin will need to be confirmed by the Senate to take on the role permanently.

Noem, who was formerly South Dakota's governor, had been at the forefront of Trump's efforts to carry out mass deportations. Following her confirmation, she quickly became the face of the administration's immigration agenda — making multimillion-dollar ads urging people to self-deport, conducting press conferences around the U.S. touting deportation numbers, and conducting international visits geared at promoting Trump's vision.

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She is the highest-profile departure in recent weeks at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Madison Sheahan, former deputy director at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, left her post at the start of the year to run for Congress. Top department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin left her role last month.

At the start of her second year on the job, Noem faced bipartisan criticism over her leadership of an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, where she deployed 3,000 officers and where two U.S. citizens were killed. Some of the loudest voices on the right for her resignation came from Sens. Thom Tillis, N.C., who is not running for reelection, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Other Republicans denounced Noem after she referred to 37-year-old Alex Pretti, who was shot by two Border Patrol agents, as a "domestic terrorist" before any investigation had begun. Following the event, Congress, amid opposition from Democrats, failed to pass a budget to fund DHS and attempted to negotiate immigration enforcement reforms.

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Noem was asked to testify before the Senate and House judiciary committees in early March — as her agency was in the third week of a shutdown. She said 100,000 employees were furloughed, including those who work in cybersecurity and disaster relief.

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During the hearings, she sparred with lawmakers of both parties over the tactics used by immigration officers, spending at her agency and her broader leadership. Noem also received questions regarding a letter sent by DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari that accused Noem's department of having "systematically obstructed the work of the DHS Office of Inspector General" as he sought data related to immigrant arrests, airport security programs and counterintelligence.

Noem was the face of the mass deportation agenda

During Noem's time helming the 250,000-person agency, DHS was at the center of an ambitious effort to arrest, detain and deport 1 million people without legal status per year. DHS data released in the fall shows the department deported 605,000 people and has a historic high number of people in immigration detention.

As secretary, Noem oversaw the start of a hiring surge to bring on thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the proliferation of Border Patrol agents as enforcers throughout the country.

Noem's confirmation out of the Senate sailed through, despite questions over how much money the department was asking for to conduct immigration enforcement and policy directives coming from personnel high up at the White House, such as border czar Tom Homan.

While on the job, Noem drew scrutiny over the handling of national disaster relief and resources and her selection of Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign aide, for a DHS special employee advisory role. Noem's DHS has also consistently ended up in the crosshairs of legal scrutiny — from immigration courts to the Supreme Court. Federal district judges have blocked DHS from using wartime powers to expedite deportations and has ordered some deportees returned.

If confirmed, Mullin will advise the president on a wide range of security issues. This also includes being in charge of the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as a prominent role in counterterrorism, aviation security and cybersecurity.

Turnover within Trump's Cabinet has been minimal this term so far. Over the course of his first term, Trump had five DHS secretaries, including three who were acting secretaries.

Transcript

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

President Trump has fired his Homeland Security secretary. Kristi Noem became one of the public faces of the administration's agenda of mass deportations, and now she has become the first member of Trump's cabinet who's departed in his second term. The president announced her firing today in a Truth Social post and said that Markwayne Mullin, a senator from Oklahoma, would replace her. NPR's immigration policy correspondent Ximena Bustillo has been following this story and joins us now. Hi.

XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.

SUMMERS: So this has been quite a week for Kristi Noem. She was in the hot seat on Capitol Hill. She faced a lot of bipartisan pushback in Congress. Tell us more.

BUSTILLO: Yeah. Noem spoke for several hours before both House and Senate Judiciary Committees this week, where she was grilled by lawmakers over her leadership. One of the most notable moments came during a questioning period from GOP Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. He asked Noem about a multimillion-dollar immigration-related ad campaign that she ran last year. The contract for the ads went to a firm that was created just days before. According to reporting from investigative news outlet ProPublica, that firm is connected with the husband of former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. Now, NPR has not independently confirmed that reporting, but here is Kennedy asking if the president knew about the ads.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOHN KENNEDY: ...Ask you to run these advertisements. Is that right?

KRISTI NOEM: We had that conversation, yes, before I was put in this position and sworn in and confirmed and since then as well.

BUSTILLO: He says, did President Trump ask you to run those ads? And Noem basically confirms that Trump was OK with it. Lawmakers across party lines did have other concerns with her leadership, including how efficiently the agency had distributed disaster relief funds and, of course, its tactics enforcing immigration law.

SUMMERS: And Noem was essentially the public face, public messenger for those immigration enforcement tactics. How did that message change?

BUSTILLO: Yeah, she really was the public face of that agenda. She was featured in promotional social videos, standing in places like El Salvador's notorious prison, CECOT, and she was also on the front lines of immigration arrests, always with cameras around. And she always defended the actions of the agency, but that backfired after events in Minnesota. If you remember, two U.S. citizens were killed by immigration officers there back in January. After the death of Alex Pretti, which was one of the U.S. citizens, Noem was quick to label him as a domestic terrorist.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

NOEM: This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts.

BUSTILLO: That language, although she'd used it before, drew immediate bipartisan scrutiny.

SUMMERS: Right. I remember that, and those events in Minnesota were instrumental in bringing about a shutdown of the agency.

BUSTILLO: Right. Democrats stripped funding from DHS out of a broader government funding package to try and force changes to immigration enforcement tactics. The agency is now in its third week without funding, and that means hundreds of thousands of federal employees are furloughed or working without pay.

SUMMERS: And Trump's pick to replace Noem is Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin. Talk about the job ahead of him.

BUSTILLO: You know, he's going to have a lot to juggle. Trump says that he could take over by the end of March, though, of course, he will have to get confirmed by the Senate, and it is unclear whether the agency will be funded by Congress by then. There is bipartisan consensus that there's a lack of trust in federal immigration enforcement officers, and internally, there have also been fractures. Noem was also asked about a letter during those congressional hearings that was sent to lawmakers by the agency's inspector general, where he accuses the department of obstructing his own internal investigations.

Now, zooming out, Trump won these (ph) election in 2024 in part due to his promises to clamp down on border security. But in the wake of Minnesota, nearly two-thirds of Americans say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gone too far, and that's according to a poll from NPR/PBS and Marist last month. Still, immigration enforcement continues to be a top issue for the president and Democrats in this midterm cycle.

SUMMERS: NPR's Ximena Bustillo. Thank you.

BUSTILLO: Thank you.

Correction

Mar. 5th, 2026

A previous version of this story misspelled Madison Sheahan's last name as Sheehan.