U.S. Sen. John Fetterman is calling for President Donald Trump to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the immigration crackdown her department is overseeing faces increasing criticism following this weekend’s fatal shooting by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis.
“President Trump, I make a direct appeal to immediately fire Secretary Noem,” Fetterman, D-Braddock, said in a statement Tuesday morning.
“Americans have died. She is betraying (Homeland Security’s) core mission and trashing your border security legacy,” Fetterman added.
Tuesday’s appeal comes a day after Fetterman called for an immediate end to the massive immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
“It has become an ungovernable and dangerous urban theater for civilians and law enforcement that is incompatible with the American spirit,” Fetterman said Monday.
More than 3,000 federal officers have been deployed to Minneapolis to conduct what Homeland Security has called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out. Homeland Security said last week that more than 3,000 people had been arrested in the Minneapolis area as part of its Operation Metro Surge. The operation has been met with criticism from many government officials and residents, and immigration officers have fatally shot two residents.
U.S. Reps. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, and Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, have joined more than 100 Democratic colleagues in the House in cosponsoring legislation to impeach Noem.
The legislation has gained momentum, and cosponsors, since being introduced on Jan. 14 — after the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renee Good, 37, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, but 10 days before Border Patrol officers shot and killed Alex Pretti, also 37. The legislation doesn’t have any Republican cosponsors in the GOP-controlled House.
Noem had described Pretti as a domestic terrorist. Many videos of the incident do not support her claim.
“Violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and to perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism,” Noem said during a press conference on Saturday.
