Republican supporters of Trump’s new pick praise his commitment to the president’s agenda. But critics say swapping Noem for Mullin will likely result in few substantive changes at DHS.
Markwayne Mullin clarifies ICE stance at DHS confirmation hearing
Markwayne Mullin answered questions on how he would handle ICE deployments to cities in his DHS confirmation hearing.
Millions of travelers stuck in slow airport security lines. Mass civil rights protests in major cities. Two Americans dead at the hands of immigration officers.
The incoming head of the powerful Department of Homeland Security will take over an agency mired in controversy over immigration enforcement, stuck in a partial shutdown and struggling to disburse disaster relief. After firing Kristi Noem after 13 dramatic months as secretary, President Donald Trump nominated U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin for the top job.
The Oklahoma Republican faces a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, March 18, before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Republican supporters of Trump’s new pick praise his commitment to the president’s agenda. In his announcement, the president called Mullin “a MAGA Warrior… who will make a spectacular Secretary of Homeland Security.”
But critics in Congress and DHS veterans say swapping Noem for Mullin will likely result in few substantive changes at a department tasked with everything from screening airport passengers to securing the border and doling out disaster assistance. They say the policy direction – especially on immigration enforcement – is coming straight from the White House.
“It’s the Donald Trump show,” said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, past chair and current ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
If Mullin is confirmed, he’ll take over a department caught in the political crosshairs, hamstrung by the partial shutdown but also awash in funding for a mass deportation effort that is losing public support.
Democrats have refused to approve the department’s annual budget, demanding changes to immigration enforcement tactics following the fatal shootings by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January. A partial shutdown of DHS took effect Feb. 14.
But while the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other workers serve without pay during the shutdown, the DHS agencies tasked with executing the president’s deportation agenda are flush with money: Last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act gave DHS more than $170 billion to conduct immigration enforcement through 2029.
In a statement, the White House touted the administration’s efforts close the border and reverse Biden-era immigration policies.
“Senator Mullin is perfectly suited to lead the Department of Homeland Security and work closely with President Trump to continue building on his many successes,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. “Whether it be protecting the homeland from bad actors, stopping dangerous drugs from flowing into American communities, or removing the worst-of-the-worst criminal illegal aliens, Senator Mullin will work tirelessly to implement the President’s agenda.”
Mullin couldn’t immediately be reached by USA TODAY. The senator said in a social media post that he’s hopeful the Senate will confirm his nomination so he can work with DHS and the “thousands of patriots who keep us safe every day.”
DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump replaces Kristi Noem as Homeland Security chief
President Donald Trump replaced Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem after lawmakers grilled her over a $220 million advertising campaign.
Shift in leadership style or substance?
Created by Congress following the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Homeland Security houses the nation’s largest law enforcement agency in U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It boasts some 260,000 workers who also fight cybersecurity battles, install navigation buoys for boaters, guard the president and screen prospective new citizens. And its numbers are surging with new recruits paid for by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Under the headline-dominating leadership of Noem, the department drew condemnation for how ICE officers and Border Patrol agents carried out Trump’s deportation policies, with a new NBC News poll showing 54% of Americans disapprove of the administration’s handling of immigration.
But 53% of voters approved of how Trump has tackled border security, according to the poll, which was conducted before the president fired Noem.
Noem left the border more secure than when she took the helm of DHS: Migrant apprehensions are at record lows.
Noem made herself the public face of DHS, traveling to the border to paint a section of border fence black and visiting the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador. She popped up on a Coast Guard cutter in Panama City, took a flamethrower to a pile of cardboard to symbolically destroy government waste and donned ballistic armor as she rode with immigration detention teams around the country.
Noem required that she personally approve any grants or contracts larger than $100,000, leading to significant delays and complaints in Congress on both sides of the aisle about the slow pace of disaster aid disbursement. She was widely criticized for how she was spending the agency’s money on advertising, marked immigration vehicles and three new planes – including a luxury jet with a queen-size bed in it.
Mullin, an American and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has served in Congress since 2012 and does not have a background in law enforcement, the military or disaster response. He runs a plumbing business. Before politics, he was a professional mixed martial arts fighter.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who also previously served as governor of Arizona and as a federal prosecutor, said Mullin has “little relevant experience in the myriad issues DHS covers.”
But critics say that so long as White House border czar Tom Homan and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller – two architects of the president’s mass deportation effort – remain close to Trump, Americans shouldn’t expect an about-face at DHS.
“Given what the Trump administration expects of people that they appoint, I don’t see him being strong enough to push back,” Thompson said. “I don’t think (Mullin) can handle Stephen Miller, who has run roughshod over the Constitution with impunity.”
Michelle Brané, a longtime migrant-rights activist who served as DHS immigration detention ombudsman under the Biden administration, said the nominee’s qualifications are less important than his commitment to Trump’s agenda.
“My suspicion is they’re going to do more of the same, maybe less loudly,” she said. “The pressure from the White House will be there.”
Hiring new ICE and Border Patrol officers
The Department of Homeland Security is growing its immigration enforcement footprint.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is dramatically increasing personnel. After a hiring spree, the agency has more than doubled officers and agents, from 10,000 to 22,000, according to DHS.
“I think we saw and are still seeing, immigration enforcement made the single-highest priority, above national security, above really every other mission of the federal government,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior policy fellow at the American Immigration Council.
DHS veterans have expressed misgivings about the rapid pace of hiring, lowered standards and abbreviated training academy.
“They are inviting big problems,” said Patrick Comey, a veteran of ICE and its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. “By this time next year, we’re going to be shaking our heads” over the agency’s decision to hire recruits as young as 18 years old. The previous age limit was 21.
Massive detention capacity expansion
If confirmed, Mullin will oversee the largest expansion of American immigration detention in generations.
ICE now has funding to hold as many as 135,000 immigrants on any given day, according to Reichlin-Melnick at the American Immigration Council, and the agency is actively working to increase detention beds to rapidly detain and deport millions of people.
ICE Director Todd Lyons said the government aims to achieve that logistical challenge by detaining immigrants in sprawling warehouses “like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings.” Homeland Security has purchased 10 warehouses and, in early March, was eyeing two others.
When Trump took office, ICE was holding fewer than 40,000 people. By February 2026, ICE was holding more than 68,000 people.
Questions about FEMA readiness
DHS plays a key role in the nation’s disaster preparedness and response via FEMA. The disaster agency has been a frequent target of Trump’s criticism, and Mullin has previously said he thinks states are better prepared to take the lead in emergency responses.
From 2013 to 2015, Mullin served on a House committee that in part oversaw FEMA, but has not otherwise played a significant role in congressional oversight of Homeland Security.
Former FEMA public affairs director Rafael Lemaitre said Noem presided over an unprecedented “hollowing out” of the core cadre of FEMA workers who’d built critical expertise hurricane after hurricane, wildfire after wildfire.
The disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 demonstrated the risk of having politicized and unqualified FEMA and DHS leadership when it comes to major disasters, said Lemaitre, who is an advisory board member to the “Sabotaging our Safety” advocacy group opposing Trump’s FEMA changes.
“It’s been a series of real gut punches to the morale of the workforce and their ability to respond quickly to emergencies,” said Lemaitre, who served at FEMA during the Obama administration.
Lemaitre said Republicans often criticize FEMA right up until their home states need federal assistance on disasters that are just too big for local or state governments to effectively manage.
“The next secretary will have to take a hard look in the mirror and see if he really wants to relive the mistakes of the Noem administration and the Bush administration where they micromanaged FEMA during disasters,” he said. “My fear is that they will continue this pattern of choosing people whose only qualification appears to be political loyalty.”
Coast Guard ramps up readiness
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocated a surge of funding for the Coast Guard, which is overseen by DHS. Almost $25 billion in funding is now flowing to the agency, which is buying 38 new large vessels, including 17 icebreakers; 40 helicopters; six patrol airplanes, along with two G700Gulfstream executive jets, the purchase of which drew sharp condemnation from Democratic lawmakers.
Noem’s office had defended the Gulfstream purchases as necessary to replace aging Coast Guard planes used to transport DHS leaders.
Earlier in his term, Trump insisted the United States needed more control or even ownership over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, citing its strategic location in the Arctic. While Trump hasn’t discussed Greenland recently, the Coast Guard is ramping up operations in the Arctic as Russia and China increasingly travel through the area as a shortcut between Asia and Europe.
Airport travel challenges
Perhaps the most immediate issue facing Mullin and DHS is the ongoing partial shutdown that’s slowing spring break travel.Democrats in Congress are trying to pass ICE and Border Patrol reforms, including a general ban on anonymous, masked agents, and have refused to agree to existing Republican funding proposals. But immigration agencies remain funded while thousands of TSA airport security screeners are going unpaid. Other divisions, including FEMA, are operating at minimal levels.
An increasing number of TSA officers are calling in sick or simply quitting for other jobs, according to DHS officials. The airport staffing reductions have caused intermittent security delays at airports around the country, particularly in Texas, Florida and the New York City area.Frustrated travelers are being warned to arrive as much as four hours before their flights, and social media posts show grumpy families waiting in long lines at poorly staffed checkpoints.In a statement, TSA leaders said some staffers can’t afford the gas necessary to drive to work, because this is at least the third paycheck in six months that workers have gone without, after a previous partial government shutdown last fall.
Rebuilding trust
The White House issued a news release on March 16 aggregating supportive comments from two dozen Senate Republicans, praising Mullin’s nomination.
“Americans sent President Trump back to the White House to clean up the mess made by Joe Biden, and I have every confidence Markwayne will build on @Sec_Noem’s great work to make our nation safer,” U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, said on social media.
Mullin needs a simple majority of votes in the Senate to be confirmed as DHS secretary.
Thompson said the next DHS leader needs to rebuild the trust broken with the American people after the Good and Pretti killings. That includes de-politicizing the department and answering questions from Congress on immigration enforcement and disaster response.
Noem and her staff routinely ignored requests for basic facts, he said.
“That’s when the alarm bells started sounding that something wasn’t right,” he said. “When bad things happen, it has nothing to do with race or political affiliation. It should be everyone working together for that common defense.”
Contributing: Christopher Cann
