Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis had two words after Kristi Noem was fired as homeland security secretary: “Good riddance.”
After a monthslong surge in federal immigration enforcement in his state, Mr. Frey and some other elected officials in Minnesota welcomed Ms. Noem’s ouster on Thursday. Ms. Noem’s agency oversaw a large operation that killed two American citizens in Minneapolis this year, prompting nationwide protests over President Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said in a social media post on Thursday that Ms. Noem had done “a stunning amount of damage.” He added, “this doesn’t change the fact that we need a complete overhaul of DHS, impartial investigations into the killing of two American citizens, and information on children that were taken from Minnesota.”
Indeed, some Minnesotans remain wary of federal immigration agents and warned that Ms. Noem’s exit should not give them peace of mind.
“To think removing her alone changes the bad infrastructure under her is mistaken,” said Paschal O. Nwokocha, an immigration lawyer in Minneapolis. “I’m not going to just relax and say, ‘oh, she’s no longer there.’”
Alex Plechash, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party, said he hoped Ms. Noem’s firing would “move the conversation away from personalities and back to the policies that matter.” He said he wanted to see more attention on the widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs, which the Trump administration had cited to justify the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota.
In December, the Trump administration began sending thousands of immigration agents to the Twin Cities region for the immigration crackdown, which it called Operation Metro Surge. The operation intensified in the new year after the fatal shootings of two Americans: Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, and Alex Pretti, an intensive-care nurse, both 37.
After Mr. Pretti’s killing, Democratic lawmakers demanded new guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a requirement to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans rejected those measures, and the department is now in its third week of a partial shutdown.
Ms. Noem has suggested that both Mr. Pretti and Ms. Good were domestic terrorists, in defense of the federal agents who shot them, remarks that drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. Videos of both shootings quickly spread on social media and countered Ms. Noem’s claims.
Mr. Trump announced that he planned to appoint Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, as Ms. Noem’s successor. Aisha Chughtai, a Minneapolis City Council member, said Mr. Mullin is likely to push the same policies Ms. Noem did.
“Our work is nowhere near done,” she said. “We have to continue to resist this regime that believes in cruelty.”
Pooja Salhotra covers breaking news across the United States.
The post Minnesota Officials Welcome Firing of Homeland Security Secretary appeared first on New York Times.
