department of homeland security

Kristi Noem's job 'no longer secure': White House official

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem may soon be headed for the exits, according to an unnamed official in President Donald Trump's White House.

The Atlantic reported Friday that Noem may have already been on thin ice in the wake of multiple high-profile incidents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in which federal agents killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight. Trump pulled out Gregory Bovino — Noem's chosen face of Operation Metro Surge — and replaced him with immigration advisor Tom Homan. Now, the Atlantic is reporting Trump is considering abandoning Noem altogether.

"In public, Trump has continued to praise Noem and shrug off calls for her resignation. But White House officials have privately grown frustrated with her performance, as Republican midterm strategists raise alarms about the political damage," the Atlantic reported. "One person familiar with the discussions told us that Noem’s position is no longer secure, even though the president has not yet moved against her."

Congress recently left Washington D.C. for the President's Day recess without agreeing on a deal to fund DHS, meaning Noem's agency is now shut down until further notice. The Atlantic reported that the DHS secretary's planned trips to New Orleans, Louisiana, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other stops have been cancelled, as the trips were not deemed to be mandatory.

While Trump is loath to fire Noem due to his famous "no scalps" policy in which he seeks to deny the media the satisfaction of reporting on turnover in his administration, he is also reportedly hesitant to fire her due to his longstanding relationship with Corey Lewandowski — Noem's top advisor and the president's one-time campaign manager. However, the two are in particularly hot water following a lengthy Wall Street Journal report detailing their chaotic leadership of DHS.

Noem's policy of personally approving any expenditure over $100,000 — which she first implemented last summer — has also led to frustration within DHS, according to the Atlantic. The outlet reported Noem's insistence on being a bottleneck for major expenditures has led to "infighting and finger-pointing." The Journal's report mentioned one instance in which Noem let a border wall construction contract sit unsigned on her desk for months while steel prices skyrocketed. By the time Noem signed it, the money allocated had been projected to build significantly less of the wall. Despite the controversy, the administration continues to publicly stand by Noem.

"President Trump and Secretary Noem have ensured the most secure border in our Nation’s history and our homeland is undoubtedly safer today than it was when the President took office last year," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Atlantic. "The President continues to have full confidence in the Secretary."

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Trump has become increasingly 'frustrated' with Kristi Noem: report

Wall Street Journal writer Josh Dawsey says the White House is growing increasingly frustrated with the antics of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, though he noted President Donald Trump is loathe to fire anyone in his second administration out of bitterness to his enemies.

“The president has told senior officials in the administration he does not want to fire Cabinet secretaries at this time. And he wished that he wouldn't have had to fire so many people in the first time. And it led to leaks and drama and he doesn't want to give scalps to his critics or the media,” Dawsey told MS NOW anchor Katy Tur. “So, I think that's one reason you see some survivals."

Noem currently faces bipartisan frustration in Congress after she falsely claimed Minnesota resident Alex Pretti was “a domestic terrorist” who was “brandishing” a gun and was intent on “killing law enforcement”—a lie for which she has yet to apologize.

More recently, the Wall Street Journal exposed Noem’s unpredictable behavior, revealing she had fired a federal employee for leaving her blanket on a plane.

“Within DHS, Noem and Lewandowski frequently berate senior level staff, give polygraph tests to employees they don’t trust and have fired employees—in one incident, Lewandowski fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane, according to people familiar with the incident,” Dawsey reported in WSJ.

Then, the simmering criticism boiled over within the last few months with the killings of Minneapolis, Minnesota residents by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Noem’s policies and publicity moves backfired in Minneapolis, prompting some in Trump’s inner circle to try to persuade him to fire Noem and her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski.

Dawsey confirmed “there's widespread frustration” with Noem inside the White House, but Trump refuses to fire her, at least for now.

“By all intents and purposes, he does still support her, even though many of his aides and advisers have been frustrated. But, you know, you've watched the president for a long time, Katy. He supports someone until suddenly he doesn't. You know, sometimes so and so has his support, has his support, has his support — and then they're out.”

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Kristi Noem had Coast Guard pilot fired for leaving her blanket on a plane: report

New details are emerging about turmoil inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the leadership of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — and her rumored paramour, Corey Lewandowski.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that DHS sources are sounding the alarm about patterns Noem and Lewandowski (who was once President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign manager) are exhibiting atop DHS. Sources confided to the Journal that since becoming Noem's top advisor at DHS, Lewandowski has assumed an all-powerful role within the agency, and has continued to fuel speculation of a secret relationship with Noem (both Noem and Lewandowski are married), which even Trump has reportedly brought up on multiple occasions.

In one instance, Lewandowski reportedly fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after learning Noem's blanket was left behind. When a plane transporting Noem had to be taken out of commission for a maintenance, Noem changed planes. However, once Lewandowski learned her blanket didn't make the trip, he fired the pilot. That pilot was eventually re-hired once Noem and Lewandowski learned there was no one else available to fly them home.

Lewandowski also reportedly asked for a federally issued gun and badge, even though badges and guns are typically only issued to those who have undergone law enforcement training (Lewandowski graduated from the New Hampshire police academy in 2006, and was a member of the New Hampshire State Police between 2006 and 2010). When New York Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Tom Feeley was being considered for ICE director, Lewandowski reportedly asked Feeley if he would issue him a badge and gun. When Feeley declined, he was then passed over for Todd Lyons.

Both Noem and Lewandowski also reportedly clashed with Rodney Scott, who is the current commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). According to the Journal, Scott complained that Noem and Lewandowski mismanaged construction of Trump's wall along the Southern border of the U.S. The outlet reported that a contract for border wall construction sat on Noem's desk for roughly two months. By the time she finally signed it, the price of steel had skyrocketed, meaning far less of the wall could be built with the money allocated by Congress.

Scott even once became so frustrated with Lewandowski that he told him he would no longer take orders from him, since his 130-day window as a designated special government employee had expired. They then reportedly retaliated against Scott by reassigning his chief of staff and convinced his deputy chief of staff to resign, without giving a reason for doing so. They then replaced those two staffers with employees loyal to them.

The CBP chief also cautioned against elevating Gregory Bovino to be Border Patrol commander-at-large and making him the face of DHS' operations in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, with the Journal reporting Scott believed Bovino's new role would "backfire on the whole department." Even though Bovino reported to Scott in the DHS org chart, Noem and Lewandowski structured operations so Bovino reported directly to them. After the fatal shooting of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Bovino was pulled out of Minneapolis and reassigned to his original office in El Centro, California.

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Exposed: The 'fortuitous timing' behind Trump's abrupt drawdown in Minneapolis

President Donald Trump's administration rapidly withdrawing federal agents from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was done to prevent Minnesota officials from obtaining federal records.

That's according to a new court filing the Trump administration submitted Thursday to U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Politico legal correspondent Josh Gerstein tweeted a link to the filing, noting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had "fortuitous timing" behind the recent announcement that the DHS was ending "Operation Metro Surge."

The DHS' filing alleges that the State of Minnesota and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) want to go on a "fishing expedition" to obtain records about federal immigration enforcement operations in the Gopher State. The administration argued against Minnesota's motion for expedited discovery by pointing to Thursday's announcement by White House immigration advisor Tom Homan that all federal agents had been pulled out of Minneapolis.

"The unjustified nature of Plaintiffs’ request becomes even more apparent in the light of today’s announcement that Operation Metro Surge will conclude because of the significant progress that has been made in arresting public safety threats as well as the increased cooperation from state and local authorities," the filing read. "This significant development undercuts any need for this case to proceed on an expedited schedule at all ... the Court should deny plaintiffs' motion."

Homan's announcement that he was withdrawing agents from Minnesota's largest city comes after weeks of sustained and escalating protests in the wake of federal agents killing U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And Homan's claim of lowering violent crime is questionable, given that the Minneapolis-St. Paul area saw a "drastic decline in murders" between 2024 and 2025, according to Axios.

Additionally, Minnesota Public Radio reported in October that crime in the Minneapolis area has been on a steady decline since 2020 and 2021. The drop in murders, carjackings, robberies and homicides took place well before the Trump administration deployed federal agents to Minneapolis in January.

Following Homan's announcement, MS NOW host Mika Brzezinski argued that the "public is safer in Minneapolis if [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] gets out" of the city, given agents' pattern of shooting, tear-gassing and pepper-spraying citizens.

"[T]hey didn't go after the worst of the worst," Brzezinski said. "They say they are now — and in a condescending way — say that Minnesota's finally working with them to go into the prisons. No, you are cowering away with your tail between your legs and going toward the prisons."

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Trump admin deploys 'secretive legal weapon' against retiree for criticizing DHS

President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security is employing a "secretive legal weapon" to target and surveil Americans, according to a new report.

The Washington Post on Tuesday relaying the story of a retiree who found himself on the receiving end of it after speaking out against the deportation case against an Afghan asylum seeker.

"He had decided that the America he believed in would not make it if people like him didn’t speak up, so on a cool, rainy morning in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Jon, 67 and recently retired, marched up to his study and began to type," the Post's report detailed. "He had just read about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s case against an Afghan it was trying to deport. The immigrant, identified in The Washington Post’s Oct. 30 investigation as H, had begged federal officials to reconsider, telling them the Taliban would kill him if he was returned to Afghanistan."

The retiree told the Post that he found the story "unconscionable," and after a quick Google search, he was able to find the email address of Joseph Dernbach, the lead prosecutor in H's case, named in the original story.

“Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” he wrote in an email. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”

A little over five hours later, he received an email alert from Google notifying him that it had "received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account," listing the process as a subpoena and the authority as DHS. Not long after that alert, "men with badges" were at his door.

This was an example of an administrative subpoena – a tool that the federal government under Trump is increasingly leaning on — as they do not require authorizations from a judge or grand jury. "Tech experts and former agency staff" told the Post that thousands of these subpoenas are issued each year, potentially tens of thousands. They are "not subject to independent review, they can take just minutes to write up and, former staff say, officials throughout the agency, even in mid-level roles, have been given the authority to approve them."

"Though the U.S. government had been accused under previous administrations of overstepping laws and guidelines that restrict the subpoenas’ use, privacy and civil rights groups say that, under President Donald Trump, Homeland Security has weaponized the tool to strangle free speech," the report explained. "For many Americans, the anonymous ICE officer, masked and armed, represents Homeland Security’s most intimidating instrument, but the agency often targets people in a far more secretive way."

“There’s no oversight ahead of time, and there’s no ramifications for having abused it after the fact,” Jennifer Granick, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the outlet. “As we are increasingly in a world where unmasking critics is important to the administration, this type of legal process is ripe for that kind of abuse.”

In a post to X, Drew Harwell, a technology reporter for the Post, decried these subpoenas as "a Kafkaesque form of domestic surveillance, intimidating Americans for lawful speech."

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Trump admin denies core constitutional right to US veteran

President Donald Trump's administration is now allegedly preventing a U.S. citizen and veteran from meeting with their attorney, according to a new report.

ABC News reported Monday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not allowing attorneys representing clients who are being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Whipple Building outside of Minneapolis. This apparently includes at least one U.S. citizen who also served in the Iraq War.

According to ABC, an unnamed "prominent local criminal defense attorney" verified that his client was a bystander witnessing an immigration enforcement operation near his home.

"They told me that because my client had not requested me by name, that I could not see him," the lawyer said. "I’ve been practicing law in Minnesota for almost 20 years, and I have never been denied access to a client."

Another attorney who withheld their name told ABC that the Whipple Building is unable to accommodate meetings between attorneys and their clients. They accused the Trump administration of denying their client a core Constitutional right that is afforded both citizens and non-citizens alike.

"One ICE agent said if we let you see your clients, we would have to let all the attorneys see their clients, and imagine the chaos," the attorney told ABC. "And I said to that person, yeah, you do have to let all the attorneys see their clients. You do have to accommodate that. That’s the Constitution. You chose to put them here. I didn't bring this guy here, you did."

Under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, anyone who is "accused" of a crime not only has the right to a speedy trial by a jury of their peers in the jurisdiction where they were charged, to be able to confront witnesses, have the process for obtaining witnesses in their favor "and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." Attorney Robert Sicoli told ABC that there is "nothing in the Constitution that talks about accommodating the government."

"It is a violation of constitutional rights," said Sicoli, who said he was also prevented from meeting with a client detained by the federal government.

Click here to read ABC's report in full.

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Leaked documents reveal desperate push for federal agents as rank-and-file buck orders

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now carrying out a massive high-profile operation in the wake of the fatal shooting of U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota last week. But one journalist is reporting that some federal agents are wary of the intense blowback against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following Good's death.

In a Monday post to his Substack, journalist Ken Klippenstein published leaked DHS documents urging agents to practice situational awareness when entering and leaving their hotel, and to "be mindful of [operational security] and officer safety." The document also encouraged DHS employees to "be mindful of what you post to social media" and "turn off your location settings and set page to private."

Klippenstein also reported that "opposition within the ranks" of ICE prompted DHS to issue a call for "volunteers" in Minneapolis. One document called for 200 more Border Patrol agents and 100 "processing coordinators" for the week of January 11. One unnamed ICE agent anonymously confided to Klippenstein that their colleagues are uneasy about deploying in the Twin Cities area, given the massive protests that have been underway since Good was killed.

"We do have personnel but some just don’t want to go," the agent said.

"There might be some immature knuckleheads who think they are out there trying to capture Nicolas Maduro, but most field officers see a clear need for deescalation," one source Klippenstein described as a "high-level career official at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington" said.

"There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around," they added.

An unnamed Border Patrol agent placed blame for heightened tensions in Minneapolis directly on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who proclaimed that Good was carrying out an act of "domestic terrorism" just hours after she was killed.

"There is a video and she just lied," the agent said.

Click here to read Klippenstein's report in full.

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Trump admin's 'eerie' holiday posts 'may have violated the Constitution': analysis

New Republic Associate Writer Edith Olmstead argues President Donald Trump's administration violated the Constitution while it was haunting the internet with holiday images invoking Christian nationalism.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s tasteless holiday sh——posting may have just violated the United States Constitution,” Olmstead said, citing the federal agency’s official X account publishing multiple Thursday posts that appeared to violate the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government actions that favor one religion over another.

“Rejoice America, Christ is born!” read one post.

“Merry Christmas, America. We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior,” said another.

Olmstead said the second post was likely meant to evoke nostalgia, but mostly stirred nervousness with footage of President Donald Trump spliced into clips of popular holiday movies.

“It even included a photograph of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem holding a Christmas tree in Chicago, where she launched a deadly large-scale immigration operation, to really put the eerie in cheery,” said Olmstead, adding that the Trump administration now views the separation between church and state as a suggestion.

“It’s fitting that DHS would be the source of this blatant violation, as Noem’s ethnic cleansing approach to homeland security is transparently rooted in xenophobia and Christian nationalism. And the president has continually leaned into Christian nationalist rhetoric in order to please his conservative base,” Olmstead wrote.

Similarly, critics like Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, complain that the posts are “one more example of the Christian Nationalist rhetoric the Trump administration has disseminated since Day One in office.”

“People of all religions and none should not have to sift through proselytizing messages to access government information,” said Laser. “It’s divisive and un-American.”

Read the New Republic report at this link.

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Leaked memo from top DHS official suggests 'no legal barrier' to crack down on protesters

A new memo from the Department of Homeland Security authorizes Federal Protective Service officers to leave federal property and, if necessary, enter private homes to “eliminate” threats, including what it describes as an “identified sniper” located blocks away from a federal facility, journalist Marisa Kabas reported Friday in her newsletter The Handbasket.

The internal memo, titled “Federal Protective Service [FPS] Policy and Off-Property Jurisdiction,” was written by DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara and circulated to all FPS personnel on Wednesday by Benjamine Huffman, the DHS Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Management, per the report.

Addressing concerns about the legal limits of FPS jurisdiction, Mazzara wrote that such limits “are misplaced,” and that “the limits to FPS’s authority off federal property are the edges of the Constitution on one side and necessity on the other.

Mazzara stated that FPS officers are permitted to respond to incidents even far from federal buildings if a “reasonable nexus” to the protection of federal property exists.

He wrote: “FPS could even enter a private residence containing an identified sniper blocks away from a federal facility in order to eliminate that exigent threat. There is simply no legal barrier to FPS taking action off federal property where a reasonable nexus to protecting that property exists.”

The phrase “identified sniper” refers to an individual who has been clearly recognized by FPS as posing a lethal, long-range threat — likely armed and positioned to target a federal building or officers.

The memo frames this as a justification for the use of force and warrantless entry in urgent situations.

Mazzara also wrote that FPS may set up barriers, fences, and other physical controls in areas near, but not limited to, federal buildings.

“This is not limited to the sidewalk or streets immediately adjacent to federal buildings as we do not live in a world of sticks and stones, but Mausers and Winchesters,” he said, referencing rifle brands.

One FPS employee, who was not named, told The Handbasket: “It’s quite clear that agents are being told they can go wherever. All of it was quite alarming and an unusual email to receive both in content and tone.”

The guidance comes as National Guard troops have been deployed to cities like Chicago, where DHS agents have recently been involved in arrests of immigrants, journalists and clergy. U.S. Northern Command confirmed Wednesday that these deployments are intended to protect DHS personnel and property.

In an accompanying email, Huffman wrote that the guidance “reaffirms that FPS officers and, by extension, any DHS personnel performing protective functions at ICE or CBP facilities may operate beyond federal boundaries when a clear nexus exists to the protection of federal property. Meanwhile, although the memo presents its scenarios as responses to threats, internal reports from DHS itself suggest a different picture.

The New York Times reported that FPS assessments of recent protests in cities like Portland described them as “low energy,” offering no indication of heightened threats that would warrant expanded enforcement powers.

Another FPS employee told The Handbasket: “I guess they got jealous of ICE being able to do anything they want.”

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DHS takes down video after being called out by Trump-supporting podcaster

One prominent podcaster who interviewed President Donald Trump last year recently called out the administration for using his likeness in a video without his consent. Now, that video has been taken down.

That's according to a Wednesday article in CNN, which reported that a video from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) featuring comedian Theo Von — whose "This Past Weekend" podcast is one of the most popular on Spotify — is no longer on its account. Von called out the DHS in a post to his X account, stating that "didnt approve to be used in [the video]" and demanding payment.

"I know you know my address so send a check,” Von wrote. “And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos."

"When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows," he added. "Bye!"

The video in question begins with Von looking at the camera and saying "heard you got deported dude, bye." The video then shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducting raids and detaining immigrants while soft music is heard in the background.

Von interviewed Trump on his podcast in August of 2024, in which the two had a largely friendly exchange for nearly an hour. Von was later invited to Trump's exclusive second inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol along with other MAGA-adjacent media personalities like podcaster Joe Rogan.

"I felt lucky to see the inauguration. It’s inspiring, and it made me feel blessed that God let me live this time around in a country that has voting rights," Von said of the ceremony. He added that First Lady Melania Trump looked "beautiful" and that he was "heartbroken" he didn't get to meet Trump's youngest son, Barron.

Click here to read CNN's full report.

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'Insane': Trump officials seethe over Noem's hand-picked aide crippling agency operations

Corey Lewandowski — former Trump campaign manager turned senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — is reportedly playing gatekeeper for contracts over $100,000, creating a vortex of delays.

Politico reported Wednesday, citing insiders from the administration and FEMA, that rather than ushering contracts straight to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s desk, they are funneled through Lewandowski. He is said to hold veto power over these substantial agreements.

One FEMA official described this bottleneck as "insane" in their comment to Politico, pointing to a new DHS protocol that requires manual reviews of even routine contracts — slowing operations to a crawl.

READ MORE: Trump's reckoning may be right around the corner — here's why

“Corey is part of the problem,” said one administration official. “It doesn’t matter how quickly we get it there; it doesn’t just go straight to her desk.”

According to the report, the extra layer of scrutiny stems from Noem’s initiative aiming to stem wasteful spending.

Critics argue, however, that it's instead bogging down the agency — risking delayed deployment of billions in immigration enforcement funds and frustrating office workflows. Even relatively modest contracts can take weeks to get approved, per the report.

One insider told the outlet: "We’ll see if that frustrates members of Congress who voted for the Big Beautiful Bill.”

READ MORE: 'It’s a real gut punch': Rural voters 'stunned' by Trump’s damage

Though officially a “special governmental employee” limited to 130 unpaid days per year, Lewandowski’s involvement appears far more substantial. Sources note frequent appearances with Noem at events and on travel, describing him as her de facto chief of staff. Some officials question whether his days at DHS are being properly documented.

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