Backlash grew against homeland security secretary after slew of controversies from Trump’s immigration crackdown
Kristi Noem’s year-long tenure as homeland security secretary has been plagued by controversies as she led an aggressive immigration crackdown that hasprompted protests and lawsuits.
There have been scandals, legally dubious deportations condemned by human rights groups, taxpayer-funded publicity campaigns, and false claims about US citizens.
Continue reading...Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair and $220m spent on ads
Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as the homeland security secretary, capping weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership after immigration agents killed two US citizens and reports emerged that she was involved in a personal relationship with a top deputy.
Noem’s firing was the first major personnel shake-up of Trump’s second term. The president made it public in a post on Truth Social, in which he said Markwayne Mullin, a Republican Oklahoma senator, would take over from Noem starting on 31 March – though Congress would need to vote to confirm the choice first. The secretary, who he said “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)”, would become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a security initiative Trump said he planned to announce over the weekend.
Continue reading...Homeland security secretary also blamed ‘activist’ judges for defying court order to halt deportation flights
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, claimed on Sunday that the suspect in the national guard shooting in Washington DC was “radicalized” in the US and blamed the Biden administration, though the suspect’s asylum was approved under Donald Trump.
The shooting suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was granted asylum under the Trump administration in April 2025. He worked with CIA backed units in Afghanistan, coming to the US in September 2021 under an Operation Allies Welcome program.
Continue reading...Justice department maintains that Trump administration didn’t violate judge’s order to return flights to US
The Department of Justice said in a statement that Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was the one who made the decision to continue with the deportation flights of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador in March, despite a federal judge’s directive that the flights must be returned to the United States.
In a court filing on Tuesday, the justice department said that “Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove provided DHS with legal advice regarding the court’s order as to flights that had left the United States before the order issued, through DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara” and that “after receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador”.
Continue reading...Justice department maintains that Trump administration didn’t violate judge’s order to return flights to US
The Department of Justice said in a statement that Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was the one who made the decision to continue with the deportation flights of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador in March, despite a federal judge’s directive that the flights must be returned to the United States.
In a court filing on Tuesday, the justice department said that “Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove provided DHS with legal advice regarding the court’s order as to flights that had left the United States before the order issued, through DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara” and that “after receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador”.
Continue reading...Wall Street Journal reports Kristi Noem arranged purchase to expand deportation flights and for personal travel
The secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, reportedly authorized the purchase of Spirit Airlines jets before discovering the airline didn’t actually own the planes – and that the aircraft lacked engines.
The bizarre anecdote was contained in a Wall Street Journal report released on Friday, which recounted how Noem and Corey Lewandowski – who managed Donald Trump’s first winning presidential campaign – had recently arranged to buy 10 Boeing 737 aircraft from Spirit Airlines. People familiar with the situation told the paper that the two intended to use the jets to expand deportation flights – and for personal travel.
Continue reading...Administration reportedly promises ‘supercheck’ covering shutdown pay for law enforcement officers across DHS
The Trump administration has promised tens of thousands of federal agents carrying out his immigration crackdown that they will be paid during the government shutdown, according to emails seen by Reuters, even as other federal workers go without pay.
The pay plan was communicated to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staff on Wednesday in separate internal emails seen by Reuters.
Continue reading...Homeland security secretary takes aim at city’s mayor who has called deployment of national guard ‘unhinged’
Kristi Noem, Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, called Chicago “a war zone” on Sunday after federal agents shot a woman and the governor of Illinois accused the administration of fueling the crisis rather than resolving it.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday morning, Noem took aim at the city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, who has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s Ice raids and deployment of the national guard in Illinois, a measure he called “unhinged and unhealthy”.
Continue reading...Democrats say Trump allies are using incident for ‘political points’ against the left despite the victims being detainees
A deadly shooting at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Dallas has been met with markedly different reactions from the political right and left.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed shortly after the news broke that detainees were the victims of the sniper attack on the facility and that no federal agents had been injured. The president and his allies, however, were quick to frame the shooting as an attack on Ice and place blame on the “radical left”.
Continue reading...New home secretary will be joined in London by counterparts from US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand
Shabana Mahmood, the new home secretary, will host a meeting of the Five Eyes security alliance to discuss how to stop people-smuggling, as the number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the channel topped 30,000 in record time on Sunday.
Mahmood is to be joined in London by Kristi Noem, the US secretary of state for homeland security, as well as interior ministers from Australia, Canada and New Zealand – the other member countries of the intelligence-sharing pact.
Continue reading...Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said she hoped it would encourage people in the US illegally to self-deport
The Trump administration purposefully chose a notorious Louisiana prison to hold immigration detainees as a way to encourage people in the US illegally to self-deport, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday.
A complex inside the Louisiana state penitentiary, an immense rural prison better known as Angola, will be used to detain those whom Noem described as the “worst of the worst” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainees. Noem was speaking to reporters as she stood on the grounds of the facility near a new sign reading, “Louisiana Lockup.”
Continue reading...Cartoon series highlighted homeland security chief’s repeated animal killings and poked fun at her looks
South Park’s recent satirical depiction of Kristi Noem as having undergone a defective cosmetic procedure and shooting dogs has rankled the US homeland security secretary, she said in a new interview.
“It’s so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look,” Noem remarked on Thursday’s episode of the Glenn Beck Program podcast – a little more than a year after her disclosure in a memoir that she shot and killed her family’s dog on a farm.
Continue reading...‘Brave and heroic Americans’ campaign seeks investigators, officers and lawyers after agency gets funds from Congress
The agency responsible for carrying out Donald Trump’s mass deportations is launching a recruiting campaign to entice “brave and heroic Americans” to serve as new deportation officers, lawyers and investigators as the government gears up for a major expansion of immigration enforcement thanks to a recent infusion of money from Congress. The icing on the cake: a promise of up to $50,000 in signing bonuses.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement campaign, which rolled out late Tuesday, recalls recruiting posters from the second world war with images of Uncle Sam and the words “AMERICA NEEDS YOU.” There also are photos of the US president and top homeland security officials with the words “DEFEND THE HOMELAND” across the images.
Continue reading...Homan vows to escalate Ice operations after off-duty officer allegedly shot by undocumented person in New York City
The Trump administration is targeting sanctuary cities in the next phase of its deportation drive after labelling them “sanctuaries for criminals” following the shooting of an off-duty law enforcement officer in New York City, allegedly by an undocumented person with a criminal record.
Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s hardline border czar, vowed to “flood the zone” with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents in an all-out bid to overcome the lack of cooperation he said the government faced from Democrat-run municipalities in its quest to arrest and detain undocumented people.
Continue reading...Noem says president’s response to Texas floods shows how he wants to change US disaster relief agency to help states
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said on Sunday that Donald Trump wants to have the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) “remade” instead of eradicated entirely.
In a new interview on Sunday with NBC, Noem defended the Trump administration’s response to the deadly Texas floods that have killed at least 120 people, saying: “I think the president recognizes that Fema should not exist the way that it always has been. It needs to be redeployed in a new way, and that’s what we did during this response.”
Continue reading...DHS said it would terminate temporary protected status for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans
The Trump administration has ended temporary protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua in the latest phase of its effort to expel undocumented people from the US.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it would end temporary protected status (TPS) for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans in moves that will come into effect in about 60 days.
Continue reading...Homeland security secretary attempting to end legal status for approximately 521,000 Haitian immigrants
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s bid to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for approximately 521,000 Haitian immigrants before the program’s scheduled expiration date.
Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded Joe Biden’s extension of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians through 3 February. It called for the program to end on 3 August, and last week pushed back that date to 2 September.
Continue reading...Noem has played a starring role in the second Trump administration with her goal to ‘Make America Safe Again’ – derided by critics as ‘cosplay’ with cruel consequences
Little more than a year ago, Kristi Noem’s political prospects appeared to be in freefall. The then South Dakota governor was criss-crossing the country on an ill-fated book tour, widely seen, at least initially, as an audition to be Donald Trump’s running mate. Instead, Noem found herself on the defensive – a position Trump never likes to be in – after revealing in her memoir that she had shot the family’s “untrainable” hunting dog, a 14-month old wirehair pointer named Cricket.
Even in Trumpworld, where controversy can be a form of currency, the disclosure shocked. In the weeks that followed, she faded from contention and the breathless veepstakes rumor mill moved on. By the time Trump selected JD Vance as his vice-presidential nominee, Noem’s path forward on the national stage was unclear.
Continue reading...President of sheriffs’ association says ‘noncompliant’ list ‘violated the core principles of trust’ with law enforcement
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) removed a list of “sanctuary” states, cities and counties from its website following sharp criticism from a sheriffs’ association that said a list of “noncompliant” sheriffs could severely damage the relationship between the Trump administration and law enforcement.
DHS on Thursday published a list of what it called sanctuary jurisdictions that it deemed were included in areas that have a policy of limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The list prompted a response from the National Sheriffs’ Association, which represents more than 3,000 elected sheriffs across the country and generally supports federal immigration enforcement.
Continue reading...Justice department calls on court to hold judge’s order against ending temporary protected status for 300,000
The Trump administration asked the US supreme court on Thursday to intervene and assist in its attempt to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants in the US, a move that would clear the way for their deportation.
The justice department asked the supreme court justices to put on hold a federal judge’s order from March that halted the decision of the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to terminate the temporary legal status that previously was granted to some Venezuelans.
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