The Latest: Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem amid criticism over immigration enforcement

President Donald Trump has fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and says he’ll nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin.

Trump made the announcement on social media on Thursday, two days after Noem faced a grilling on Capitol Hill from GOP members as well as Democrats.

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

Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term. Noem’s departure caps a tumultuous tenure overseeing immigration enforcement tactics that have been met with protests and lawsuits.

The Latest:

Noem was the face of immigration enforcement

Noem made hers the face of immigration enforcement, often putting herself in the center of the action.

She sometimes dressed in a flack jacket and accompanied agents on immigration raids as cameras recorded, though she does not have a law enforcement background.

She also posed in front of a group of shirtless, tattooed men behind bars during a March visit to an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration sent people it accused of being gang members.

Noem doesn’t mention her firing during speech

Noem spoke for more than 20 minutes, but didn’t mention her firing as she spoke to the Sergeant Benevolent Association Major Cities Conference in Nashville on Thursday.

Even when she began answering audience questions, no one mentioned it. Asked about future law enforcement grants, Noem seemed to suggest that she would continue to be on the job.

“I think your best options for funding alternatives would be through some grants that with the department, we have specific grants towards, terrorism grants,” she said at one point. “So maybe what I’ll do is I will forward those grant opportunities to all of you so that you can share them with your departments and have that opportunity.”

Mullin would take office at a pivotal time

Mullin would take over the third largest department in government that has responsibility for carrying out Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda. And he takes the office at a pivotal time for that agenda.

Immigration enforcement during the first year of Trump’s administration was largely defined by high-profile, made-for-social-media operations with flashy names that were often led by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who reported directly to Noem.

Noem herself often went out on those operations, riding along with officers when they went out to make arrests.

But those high-profile operations in places like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, often led to clashes with activists and protesters that were captured on video and drove opposition to the president’s immigration agenda.

That culminated with the shooting deaths in Minneapolis after which Trump sent in his border czar Tom Homan to take direct control of the operation in Minneapolis. Bovino was also reassigned.