President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem will step down at the end of the month after serving just one year in the role, and Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., tapped to take over his post.
“I am pleased to announce that the most honorable United States Senator from the great state of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will be the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) effective March 31, 2026,” Trump wrote in a Truth social post.
Noem, who he said has “served us well,” will take on a new role as an “ambassador for America’s SHIELD.”
The president described the position as “our new security initiative in the Western Hemisphere.”
Noem had fallen out of favor with Trump and his tenure, but his comments before lawmakers this week about the ad campaign and whether Trump endorsed it pushed him over the edge.
In congressional hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, lawmakers questioned Noem over a $200 million ad campaign urging the voluntary deportation of anyone in the US illegally. The advertising campaign, conducted mostly in English, featured Noem. According to AdImpact, the Department of Homeland Security has spent about $80 million to air these ads through early 2025, not including production costs.
Nome told a Senate committee Tuesday that the president had approved a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, a claim the White House denied.
“POTUS has not signed off on the $220 million dollar ad campaign. Absolutely not,” a White House official told NBC News on Thursday.
As homeland secretary, Noem has overseen a nationwide campaign to increase deportations of immigrants and crack down on other forms of immigration, one of Trump’s key campaign promises.
But the administration’s actions in Minneapolis, including deploying thousands of federal troops to conduct immigration enforcement operations using sometimes brutal tactics, have drawn fierce bipartisan criticism of Noem’s leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.
In Senate and House hearings this week, Noem faced questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the deaths of two Americans killed by federal agents in Minneapolis and the administration’s mass detention of immigrants with no criminal records or convictions.
Noem refused to apologize for calling the two Americans killed by federal agents, Renee Good and Alex Pretty, “domestic terrorists,” though he acknowledged that investigations into the two deaths are still ongoing.
Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski called for Noem to step down in January, with Tillis telling reporters that she couldn’t “think of any pride in the last year” of her tenure.
Noem also garnered negative media attention for the Trump administration’s intention to buy a $70 million luxury jet, which he said would be renovated to accommodate deportation flights. Last month, current and former Coast Guard officials told NBC News that relations between Noem and Coast Guard officials had soured.
Noam is the first cabinet member of the Trump administration to leave this term. Last year, Mike Waltz left his Cabinet-level post as national security adviser after Trump nominated him to be UN ambassador.
Prior to serving in the Trump administration, Noem was the governor of South Dakota.
This is a is developing Story Please check back for updates.
Ben Commissar And Monica Alba Contributed.
