Kristi

A moment of silence for all the comedians, late-night-show writers, political satirists, memers, animators and random influencers who just lost a wealth of inspiration.

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary, was fired Thursday by President Trump, ending the 13-month tenure of a political figure whose bravado, cruelty, incompetence and commando cosplay inspired more wickedly funny material than Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin and Sean Spicer combined.

Social media’s so-called ICE Barbie, the first Cabinet secretary to leave the Trump administration during the president’s second term, was a font of material for “South Park,” “SNL,” late night and thousands more sketch artists, impersonators, musicians and everyday trash posters. She never disappointed, unless you were looking to her for feasible, humane immigration policy enforcement.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

Drama and spectacle marked her brief career, from posing in front of a packed holding cell at El Salvador’s maximum security prison CECOT, where the DHS had shipped and detained deportees, to casting herself as an agent of action in multiple ICE raid videos. Donning a big gun and long, flowing locks of hair, she insinuated herself into operations, vamping for the camera in a bulletproof vest while masked agents rounded up fellow humans like cattle.

Grim, to be sure, but at least she contributed a shred of comic relief (unintended, of course) to our new, sad reality of federal agents invading American cities and abducting people off the streets, out of their cars and from their homes.

“South Park” skewered Noem in unprintable ways. “SNL” brought back Tina Fey to play Noem. Dressed in a lavender pantsuit, too much makeup and brandishing a massive firearm, she introduced herself as “the rarest type of person in Washington, D.C.: a brunette that Donald Trump listens to.”

The endless stream of memes across social media date back to 2024, when in her memoir Noem recalled shooting and killing her 14‑month‑old dog, a wirehaired pointer named Cricket, after deciding the dog was “untrainable.” Gov. Gavin Newsom later trolled the DHS and Noem with a meme captioned “Kristi Noem’s Dog Obedience School: She’ll Treat Them As Good As She Treats Brown People.” The mock ad featured a smiling woman holding a gun and kneeling beside a dog.

If it seems cruel, consider that the DHS posted holiday-themed deportation memes around Christmas, proclaiming that federal agents were stepping up removals “for the holidays,” with a “holiday deal” offering a free flight and $1,000 to those who self-deport. One X post featured an AI-generated image of federal agents in Santa hats with the caption, “YOU’RE GOING HO HO HOME.”

Noem’s dismissal comes on the heels of two congressional hearings this week where she was questioned about her response to the ICE killings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis (she incorrectly called Good a domestic terrorist and claimed Pretti was involved in an act of domestic terrorism). She was grilled about the department spending $172 million for the purchase of two jets, the nature of her relationship with top DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski, and her $220-million DHS ad campaign starring none other than Kristi Noem. She testified in the hearings that Trump approved the ads. He said he knew nothing about them.

Her firing triggered an immediate rush of snarky content across social media, and a sharp a comment or two from prominent politicians. “Shouldn’t let the door hit her on the way out,” said Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.

But all is not lost for those needing a laugh at Noem’s expense, or at the expense of the DHS, for that matter. The president said Thursday that Noem would take on a new, freshly invented role: Envoy for The Shield of the Americas. He described the position as one that will lead “our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.” The job title and description already sound like the basis for a villainous political satire, without even trying.

And for the new guy taking the post? He’s Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a former MMA fighter. Let the memes begin …

WASHINGTON — In a major shakeup of the agency at the center of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, President Trump announced Thursday that he was replacing embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who will step down at the end of the month.

Trump said on Truth Social that he will nominate Sen. Markwayne Millin (R-Okla.) to take over the job, two days after Noem was grilled on Capitol Hill by Democrats and some Republicans.

Trump said Noem will become a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere.

Noem, the former South Dakota governor, is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term as president. Her departure comes amid intense scrutiny over immigration enforcement tactics since last year that intensified after the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis by immigration agents.

Those killings led to demands for more accountability within the agency, and disagreement over how to rein in the tactics deployed by federal immigration agents, have led to a weeks-long standoff over the agency’s funding.

Since the shutdown, lawmakers from both parties have used a series of contentious oversight hearings to question Noem’s management of the agency. During a hearing Tuesday, the criticism from Republicans was particularly blunt.

“We are an exceptional nation, and one of the reasons we are exceptional is because we expect exceptional leadership, and you’ve demonstrated anything but that,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told Noem.

When Trump announced the shakeup on social media, Noem was speaking at a conference in Nashville. She answered questions from local law enforcement organizations, and did not offer hints that she knew her departure was imminent. She was not asked about her firing during the event.

After the conference ended, Noem thanked Trump for her special envoy appointment, a diplomatic position she said will have her working to curb drugs from coming into the United States.

“I am super excited about this opportunity. It came at not a complete surprise, but it came at a little bit of a surprise,” Mullin told reporters outside the Capitol.

Mullin said he was not expecting the call Thursday, but that he is “ready to get started” and will work to “earn everybody’s vote,” regardless of party affiliation.

“When I go into this position, yes, I am a Republican, yes I am conservative, but the Department of Homeland Security is to keep everybody — regardless of whether you support me , if you don’t support me, regardless of what your thoughts are — I am here to enforce the policies that Congress passed,” Mullin said.

Mullin would need to be confirmed by the Senate, but under federal law is allowed to serve as acting Homeland Security secretary while his nomination is pending.

When the news broke, Republican senators appeared to be congratulating Mullin on the Senate floor as the chamber was conducting business. Meanwhile, Democratic senators applauded the decision to fire Noem but lamented that she will continue to serve in public office.

“The atrocities she oversaw, the falsehoods she peddled, & the corruption she committed — all richly deserve her discharge,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote on X. “President Trump should have made it explicit, rather than disguising it with another position of public trust.”

Noem was also criticized over how her department spent billions of dollars allocated by Congress.

In the congressional hearings this week, lawmakers questioned her on a $200-million ad campaign she oversaw that urged anyone in the U.S. illegally to deport voluntarily.

Noem told the Senate panel on Tuesday that the president approved the campaign, which the White House denied to NBC News.

Early criticism of Noem came last June, as DHS was scaling up raids throughout Los Angeles. During a news conference at the Westwood federal building, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was forced to the ground and handcuffed by federal agents after he interrupted Noem to ask her a question.

“If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question,” Padilla said later. “I can only imagine what they’re doing to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country.”

Padilla reacted to Noem’s ouster as evidence of public pressure working to hold her to account.

“This is why we don’t give up,” he said.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said Noem’s departure was long overdue.

“Her tenure, as two congressional hearings this week clearly showed, was defined by chaos, cruelty, corruption, and a refusal to take responsibility for the abuses carried out by federal agents under her watch,” she said. “For immigrant communities across the country, her leadership represented a dangerous escalation of policies that treated families and workers as targets rather than as human beings who contribute to and strengthen this nation.”

Salas said the new Homeland Security secretary must ensure transparency, respect the Constitution and treat immigrants with dignity.

March 5 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has removed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and appointed Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Thursday after she was aggressively grilled by a Senate committee the day before.

Trump announced the change on Truth Social, along with a new job for Noem, naming her “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.'”

He praised Noem for her “numerous and spectacular results” in the announcement.

“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” he said.

Mullin has been a Senator since 2023 and served in the House from 2013-2023. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Noem faced a combative Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, as they pressed her for answers on several issues the department has been plagued with in the past year.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called her leadership a “disaster” and told her she should resign.

“What we’ve seen is innocent people getting detained that turn out are American citizens,” Tillis said in a heated exchange.

“The fact that you can’t admit to a mistake, which looks like, under investigation, is gonna prove that Ms. [Renee] Good and Mr. [Alex] Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back. Law enforcement needs to learn from that. You don’t protect them by not looking after the facts.”

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pressed Noem about DHS ads that she starred in, spending $200 million.

The ads were made by a Republican consulting firm that was allegedly created just before submitting bids for the work.

The company is reportedly connected to the husband of Noem’s former spokesperson, though she denied any part in choosing the firm and called the ads “extremely effective.”

“Well they were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy said. “It troubles me. A fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money when we’re scratching over every penny and we’re fighting over rescission packages. I just can’t agree.”

Noem told the Senate panel that Trump had authorized the ads.

Kennedy told reporters Thursday that he got a call from the president about her testimony, The New York Times reported.

“Put it this way: His recollection and her recollection are different.”

Mullin told The Times that he has not had time to call Noem, whom he said is a friend.

“She was tasked with a very difficult job,” he said. “I think she has done the best that she could do under the circumstances.”

But he said he believed that there are opportunities to “build off things that didn’t quite go as planned.”

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he would wait and see if Mullin will be an improvement at DHS but told The Times, “It will be hard to be a downgrade.”

The Department of Homeland Security is in its third week of a shutdown, with Congress expected to vote later Thursday on a funding package.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that he will replace Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin.

In a social media post on Thursday, Trump explained that he had reassigned Noem to be a special envoy for a new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere, dubbed the “Shield of the Americas”.

The staffing change, he added, will take effect starting March 31. It marks the first major cabinet-level shake-up of Trump’s second term so far.

Trump praised Noem upon her departure from the cabinet-level post, writing that she “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)”

But Noem has played a prominent role in some of the administration’s most controversial immigration policies, and her tenure at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spurred questions about government spending and conflicts of interest.

The announcement that she would be leaving her post comes a day after she faced a grilling from Democrats during congressional hearings this week, with several politicians called for her resignation.

“DHS is supposed to be protecting our residents and upholding constitutional protections. But you’ve turned that on the head. You have actually turned the United States government against its own residents,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat, said during Wednesday’s hearing.

“Yours is a case of failed leadership. Secretary, you need to resign, be fired or be impeached because you don’t have the right to lead this agency.”

The announcement of Noem’s removal also comes as DHS continues to weather a partial government shutdown.

Democrats have opposed approving new funding for the department in response to deadly shootings involving immigration agents under Noem’s leadership.

Those shootings were brought up again this week during Noem’s appearances before judiciary committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, for instance, repeatedly accused Noem of launching a “smear campaign” against two US citizens shot dead during interactions with immigration agents: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

“There have been three homicides in Minneapolis in 2026, and your agents committed two of them,” Raskin told Noem.

He also highlighted comments Noem made calling Good and Pretti “domestic terrorists“, despite evidence undercutting the administration’s depiction of the events leading to their deaths.

“Rather than work with state and local authorities to solve these homicides, you barred Minnesota’s investigators from the crime scenes,” Raskin said.

“It smells like a coverup, and it makes me wonder who the real domestic terrorists are.”

Noem, formerly the Republican governor of South Dakota, has also been scrutinised for a $220m advertising campaign promoting border security.

The advertising campaign shows Noem riding a horse near Mount Rushmore, a well-known national memorial in her home state.

The news outlet ProPublica previously reported that a government contract for the campaign went to a Republican consulting firm with ties to senior DHS officials.

Noem has denied any wrongdoing, stating that the bidding process was “competitive” and that the contract was “all done correctly, all done legally”.

On Thursday, before announcing the staffing change, Trump denied any connection to the advertising campaign, telling the news service Reuters that he “never knew anything about it”.

Noem played a key role in the administration’s mass deportation push, and she has frequently used rhetoric that vilified immigrants as dangerous and violent.

Though DHS’s mandate focuses on domestic security, Noem has made several international trips over the last year, including visits to Ecuador in July and November.

Trump has called a “Shield of the Americas” summit at his Mar-a-Lago estate this weekend, inviting world leaders from multiple countries to discuss regional security and combatting Chinese influence in Latin America.

Noem’s replacement as DHS head, Mullin, has served as a US senator since 2023. He was a representative in the House for a decade before that, representing Oklahoma.

Trump highlighted his membership in the Cherokee Nation, writing that Mullin would be a “fantastic advocate for our incredible Tribal Communities” as DHS leader.

“Markwayne will work tirelessly to Keep our Border Secure, Stop Migrant Crime, Murderers, and other Criminals from illegally entering our Country, End the Scourge of Illegal Drugs and, MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN,” Trump said on Thursday.