ICE shootings heighten criticism of Kristi Noem's tenure at DHS

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem already had weathered missteps in the past year pressing the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policy and changes to federal disaster relief — and then came her response to immigration agents fatally shooting two Minnesotans.

The former South Dakota governor claimed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, attacked immigration officers and was “brandishing” a gun, two claims that appear to have no evidence and to even be refuted by multiple videos of the shooting, and helped fuel concerns about escalating clashes with the public.

Now Noem is in the middle of blowback from Congress and the public about the Department of Homeland Security approach to public safety, which has reignited a debate over DHS funding and sparked calls for her to lose her job.

On Monday, Trump held a two-hour meeting with Noem about her response to the Pretti shooting. On Tuesday, the president sent “border czar” Tom Homan to Minnesota and sent U.S. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino out of the state, moves widely seen as sidelining Noem from the operation.

But Trump defended Noem the same day, pointing to a secure U.S.-Mexico border. “We have a very good relationship,” Trump told reporters.

Some Senate Republicans have backed Noem as well. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told reporters Tuesday that Noem has done a “very good job in her capacity,” and referred to the shooting of Pretti as a “tough situation.”

“It’s hard to watch that video and not see that you need a thorough investigation on what the facts are,” Daines said.

But calls for Noem’s resignation or her removal include those from Sen. Lisa Murkowksi, R-Alaska, and Sen. Thom Tills, R-N.C., who said in an interview with reporters that Noem’s approach to her job has undercut Republicans on immigration and disaster aid issues they should be winning with the public.

“I think if Noem looks at her body of work, if I were in her position, I can’t think of any point of pride over the last year,” Tillis said. “She’s got to make her own decision, or the president does, but she has taken this administration into the ground on an issue that we should own.”

Tillis also looped White House adviser Stephen Miller into his criticism. “We should own the issue of border security and immigration, but they have destroyed that for Republicans, something that got the president elected,” Tillis said. “They have destroyed it through their incompetence.”

Murkowski, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said Wednesday she agrees with Tillis’ assessment.

“If you were to look at the success that this administration has seen on the southern border, in really not only choking off but really stopping the flow of illegal immigration across the border — resounding win, resounding win,” Murkowski said.

“And instead, the focus has not been on the successes, but really on what people are seeing every single day with repeat views of videos the shooting, shootings in Minnesota, and the very, very aggressive tactics that they’re seeing deployed there in that city, and all of the good, all of the focus that had been demonstrated on the southern border is just lost,” Murkowski said.

Polls have backed up those comments. A New York Times/Siena poll on Friday found 61% of voters say the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within DHS, had “gone too far,” including roughly 2 in 10 Republicans. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted Friday to Monday found 55% of Americans have “very little” confidence in ICE.

And a Reuters/Ipsos poll found most people believe ICE has gone too far. The same poll, however, found the public continues to favor Republicans over Democrats on the issue of immigration, 37-32, with 21% saying they don’t know.

Before the Pretti shooting, Democratic members of Congress already had called for oversight hearings and independent probes into the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis earlier in January. In part they pointed to the quick defenses of the agent by Trump and Noem that included descriptions of what happened that didn’t appear to match with videos of that shooting.

Previous missteps

Noem has made headlines in recent months.

Trump stepped in after ICE in September detained hundreds of South Koreans at a Hyundai factory in Georgia, causing outrage in that country and concerns about foreign investments in American manufacturing.

“I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize Investment into America by outside Countries or Companies. We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say we will learn from them,” Trump posted on social media.

In November, ProPublica reported that a company tied to Noem got taxpayer money from $220 million in DHS ad contracts. The department invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt the typical bidding process for the firm, which is run by the husband of Noem’s spokesperson and has business ties to Noem and aides, the outlet reported.

Noem, co-chair of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, had publicly agreed with Trump’s stance to dismantle of the disaster relief agency. Trump favors a system that would deliver funding for disaster relief directly to the states and cited political bias in responses to disasters and spending funds on undocumented immigrants.

But in December, on the day that council was to release its final report that did not recommend disbanding FEMA, the meeting was abruptly canceled. Noem appeared unaware the meeting would be canceled while testifying at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing. Trump has since extended the FEMA council’s deadline until March.

And delays on distribution of FEMA funds have caused consternation among some Republican lawmakers, including Tillis.

“To give you an idea of how incompetent I think she is, she actually thought FEMA should be eliminated,” Tillis said. “And when she had a FEMA director, said he didn’t think that was a good idea, she fired him within 24 hours. Now she understands that that is an important part of her job.”

Trump went on the offensive against Noem’s critics in the Republican Party during an interview with ABC News posted Wednesday, calling both Murkowski and Tillis “losers.”

“One is gone and the other should be gone,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I have a border that’s perfect – the strongest, one of the strongest borders anywhere in the world. We went from the weakest border in the world to one of the strongest borders in the world.”

But the concerns are broader among Republicans, who are fighting for control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called on the Trump administration to halt broad immigration enforcement actions.

“I have spoken with the White House and with DHS Secretary Noem about the ICE operations,” Collins said. “I asked Secretary Noem to pause the operations in both Maine and Minnesota. I believe they should be reviewed and far more targeted in their scope.”

Democrats have called for Noem’s ouster. A measure from Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., to impeach Noem has gained at least 50 new Democratic co-sponsors since Saturday, with more than three-fourths of House Democrats now signed on.

They have pointed to her use of funds to appear in online advertisements; making a video at the CECOT in El Salvador, a prison with documented human rights abuses where the U.S. government deported alleged gang members; and overall concerns over her oversight of aggressive tactics used by agents in immigration enforcement.

Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, told reporters Tuesday that Noem is “unqualified,” but downplayed the significance of Noem’s removal as providing any meaningful change to the Trump administration’s approach on immigration.

“The next DHS secretary, the name on the door doesn’t really matter,” Murphy said. “This is an operation being run by the President and Stephen Miller.”