Kristi Noem, the face of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda, has been ousted as secretary of Homeland Security — but it’s not changing the calculus for Democrats when it comes to the agency shutdown.
The news that President Donald Trump was firing Noem and nominating Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) in her place broke as senators filed into the chamber to vote on advancing legislation that would reopen DHS — the GOP’s latest bid to pressure Democrats into dropping their demands for more guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol.
That procedural vote still failed, 51-45.
“The problems at ICE transcend any one individual … It goes beyond any one person,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters. “You need to straighten out the whole agency. The rot there is deep.”
Democrats in the House are taking a similar stance ahead of a vote on their side of the Capitol to reopen DHS, which is scheduled for later Thursday afternoon.
“Of course this change in personnel is welcome. Kristi Noem was a disgrace, and we made clear what was going to happen one way or the other,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) at a news conference. “But let me also make clear, a change in personnel is not sufficient. We need a change in policy, and that has to be bold, dramatic, transformational and meaningful.”
Democrats have refused to shore up the votes to fund DHS following the fatal shootings in January of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota at the hands of federal immigration enforcement agents. Noem sought to cast the people killed, Renee Goode and Alex Pretti, as “domestic terrorists,” and refused to hold the officers accountable.
In the nearly three weeks since funding lapsed for DHS, Democrats and the White House have been trading proposals on possible changes to ICE and CBP operations, but there have so far been no breakthroughs in negotiations. Democrats are demanding new policies that would prohibit federal immigration agents from wearing masks, require officers to display identification and limit places where agents can seek to detain undocumented immigrants.
Democrats have also been insisting that ICE agents must use warrants signed by judges, which Republicans say is a nonstarter.
Just as the Noem exit was announced by Trump, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, sought unanimous consent to pass a separate bill from Democrats. It would fund parts of DHS — including the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and the nation’s cybersecurity agency — but not the agency’s immigration enforcement operations.
ICE and CPB are still conducting operations during the shutdown using billions in funding from the megabill Republicans passed last summer.
“If Republicans keep refusing to ensure ICE and Border Patrol follow the same basic standards that police departments across America already follow, then we should at least fund TSA and FEMA while we press on with negotiations to protect Americans from violence at the hands of untrained, unidentifiable federal agents,” Murray said in a statement Thursday.
“TSA agents should not go without pay because Republicans are dragging their feet on basic reforms and insisting on cutting another blank check for Kristi Noem and [deputy White House chief of staff] Stephen Miller to terrorize Americans.”
Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, chair of the appropriations panel that oversees DHS funding, objected to Murray’s request.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune early in the day Thursday accused Democrats of “flatly rejecting any chance to sit down and actually talk about it.” Following news of Noem’s departure, he predicted it could be a gamechanger in shutdown-ending negotiations.
“Democrats have been complaining about that forever,” Thune said of Noem. “So this, to me is a huge development, I would think, in the funding conversation and hopefully they’ll get more earnest about coming to the table and trying to get a deal”
Schumer signaled that wouldn’t be the case.
“They’ve been stonewalling us on the most important issues, and those have to change, and they have to change them,” he said, referring to Republicans. “We have to change them by legislation, because any one person — I don’t trust any one person being in charge of this agency as long as Trump is president, given the policies he’s espoused, given how ICE has been structured.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, also said Republicans couldn’t be trusted.
“Oh God, it is not serious. I think that’s the best way for me to describe. It is not serious,” she said in an interview. “It is because [Republicans] don’t want to do this. They don’t want to make the kind of reforms that are necessary for this agency, which is out of control and killing American citizens.”
Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
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