In brief
- US homeland security secretary Kristi Noem will leave her role in a major staffing change for Donald Trump's cabinet.
- Noem faced criticism when she labelled two US citizens fatally shot by immigration agents as committing "domestic terrorism".
One of the top officials overseeing US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, US homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, will leave her role in a major staffing move that raises questions about the direction of Trump's immigration agenda.
Noem, a former governor of South Dakota, became one of Trump's most high-profile cabinet secretaries with social media posts that portrayed immigrants in harsh terms, highlighting cases of alleged criminal offenders and using vitriolic language.
Critics said Noem demonised immigrants and promoted an immigration enforcement strategy that targeted non-criminal, working immigrants and families.
During Noem's tenure, the number of deaths in immigration detention rose to a two-decade high while staff in US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) oversight offices were slashed sharply.
She faced criticism in January when she quickly labelled two US citizens fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis as committing "domestic terrorism". Videos that emerged after the deaths undercut the assertion by Noem and other Trump officials that the two deceased — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were violent aggressors.
The public backlash for deaths led the Trump administration to move to a more targeted approach to immigration enforcement in Minnesota after months of sweeps through US cities that led to violent clashes with residents opposing the crackdown.
Democrats in the US House of Representatives moved to impeach Noem and at least two Republicans in Congress called for her to lose her job after the incidents.
During congressional hearings in March, Democrats and some Republicans criticised Noem for her approach to the immigration crackdown and management of DHS, including concern over a $314 million ad campaign that heavily featured Noem.
Direction of immigration policy
The staffing change raises questions about whether the Trump administration could seek to intensify its mass deportation push or retreat to a more targeted approach.
Under Noem's leadership, masked immigration agents surged into Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., scouring neighbourhoods and Home Depot parking lots in search of possible immigration offenders.
Trump announced Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, as the new secretary of homeland security on his social media platform Truth Social.
Noem will serve as "Special envoy for The Shield of the Americas," Trump said.
The popularity of Trump's immigration approach fell as agents detained US citizens and tear-gassed streets in an attempt to drive up deportations, which last year fell short of the administration's goal of 1 million per year.
While Noem served as a prominent proponent of Trump's agenda, White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, a long-time Trump aide, controls Trump's immigration policy.
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