Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been fired. Her removal was deserved and should have come after it was revealed that everything she said about the shooting death of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement activist Alex Pretti was false. Conducting mass deportations is hard enough without losing public credibility on the issue. But for whatever reason President Donald Trump has finally fired her, the proverbial straw appears to be her untruths about a $220 million Department of Homeland Security ad campaign. Whatever the proximate cause, her dismissal from the DHS is a welcome development. We hope her replacement, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), will work with White House border czar Tom Homan to conduct a more professional enforcement of federal immigration law.
The seeds of Noem’s ultimate firing came early in her tenure: a $220 million DHS advertising campaign ostensibly designed to promote self-deportation by illegal immigrants included many wince-worthy scenes glamorizing Noem, including one of her riding on horseback with Mount Rushmore as her backdrop. Later reporting revealed that, contrary to Noem’s testimony before Congress, the contract for the campaign was not put out to competitive tender and went to an aide who was linked to her longtime ally and “special government employee” Corey Lewandowski.
Noem’s relationship with Lewandowski has long aroused suspicion in Washington, including on Capitol Hill. But whatever the truth of it is, Lewandowski has outsize influence within the department, and this significantly undermined Noem’s credibility and effectiveness at the head of it.
Noem and Lewandowski conducted a lengthy campaign against Homan over the pace of deportations, with the two at the DHS pushing for daily quotes. They also fired many local ICE field officials. Homan wanted a more sober and measured approach, focused primarily on arresting those who committed crimes and their families. Noem and Lewandowski even succeeded in installing the fiery Gregory Bovino as “commander-at-large” of Border Patrol deportation operations.
Noem’s little empire was built on sand and started to crumble first with the shooting death of anti-ICE activist Renee Good and accelerated with the death of Pretti a short time later. On both occasions, Noem and her team rushed to issue statements to news outlets that later turned out to be false. First, Bovino was relieved of his duties and sent back to Southern California. Then, Homan was put in charge of deportations. Then Noem’s spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, was fired as well.
But Noem hung on for a little while. She continued to snipe with DHS staff over the slow pace of border wall construction, and stories about her and Lewandowski’s actions continued to leak out to the press, including one in which Noem fired a Coast Guard pilot for not transferring her blanket when she switched planes.
The final nail in Noem’s career coffin appears to be her testimony to Congress that Trump personally approved contracts for the $220 million DHS advertising campaign featuring her riding skills and picturesque appearance in a wide-brimmed western hat. Trump said publicly he “never knew anything about it,” and privately, he was furious with what he viewed as wasteful self-promotion.
In classic Trump style, Noem was not officially fired but shunted into another role as “special envoy for the Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere. For all her incompetence, arrogance, and extravagance, Noem was loyal to Trump, which is why she still has a job in the administration. The president said nice things about her when he announced her departure from the DHS.
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Mullin is a passionate advocate for Trump’s immigration policies, known for his confrontational and performative style, one left over from his earlier career as a mixed martial arts fighter. He once challenged Teamsters President Sean O’Brien to a physical fight during a Senate hearing. But although he has an aggressive demeanor, he has always seemed well-informed, with a thorough knowledge of his subject matter, and his public statements on immigration enforcement priorities seem to put him much in line with Homan’s vision. We hope the two will work well together.
Noem’s vanity projects and personal life turned the DHS into a soap opera, squandering credibility when the country needed competence. Mullin won’t fix every problem overnight, but he can restore basic professionalism: disciplined messaging, lawful priorities, and a chain of command that respects facts. The DHS should be protecting our borders, not promoting personalities.
