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Top House Democrats on Tuesday told Donald Trump to fire Kristi Noem or they would launch impeachment proceedings against the homeland security secretary, in response to the weekend killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The ultimatum came after a majority of the House Democratic caucus signed on to articles of impeachment introduced earlier in the month in response to the shooting death of Renee Good, who, like Pretti, was a US citizen killed by federal agents during the increasingly violent immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota’s largest city.
“The violence unleashed on the American people by the Department of Homeland Security must end forthwith. Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, along with his two deputies, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, in a joint statement.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Trump appeared to back Noem earlier in the day, telling reporters at the White House: “I think she’s doing a very good job. The border is totally secure.”
Robin Kelly, an Illinois congresswoman, introduced the articles of impeachment, and 162 of the 213 House Democrats had signed on as co-sponsors as of Tuesday, according to her office.
The group includes Democrats occupying safe seats and those vulnerable to losing re-election, among them Pat Ryan and Laura Gillen of New York, Greg Landsman of Ohio and Dave Min of California.
In the Senate, Democrats have vowed to block a measure funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) because it includes money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Republicans have refused to separate that bill from five other measures to fund government operations, raising the possibility of a partial shutdown after Friday, when the current spending authorizations expire.
An increasing number of Democratic senators ranging across the party’s ideological spectrum have also joined in the calls for Noem’s ouster.
John Fetterman, a moderate senator representing the swing state Pennsylvania who has signaled skepticism with the party’s strategy on homeland security funding, wrote to Trump on X with “a direct appeal to immediately fire” Noem.
“Americans have died. She is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy,” Fetterman said.
“DO NOT make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary,” he added in reference to Alejandro Mayorkas, who Republicans blame for the large number of border crossings during the Democrat’s presidency.
He was joined by Elizabeth Warren, a progressive senator from Massachusetts, who wrote on X: “Alex Pretti wasn’t a terrorist. He was a VA nurse. When agents pushed a woman to the ground, he tried to help her up. His last words were ‘Are you okay?’ Enough. Kristi Noem should resign.”
Jacky Rosen, a moderate Nevada senator who narrowly won re-election in 2024 even as Trump clinched her state’s electoral votes, called Noem “an abject failure” and said in a statement: “She’s either too incompetent to rein in the agency under her purview, or she endorses the blatant constitutional violations being committed.
“Kristi Noem and her department’s latest attempt to mislead the American public regarding the brutal and unjustified killing of Alex Pretti is deeply shameful, and she must be impeached and removed from office immediately,” Rosen said.
The Republican-led Senate judiciary committee on Monday announced that Noem will testify on 3 March, prompting its Democratic ranking member, Dick Durbin, to say: “Secretary Noem refused to appear before the Senate judiciary committee last year and now tells us that she will be available in five weeks – should she still be DHS secretary at that time.”
Speculation about Noem’s standing with the president heightened on Monday after he announced that his “border czar”, Tom Homan, would take over the operation in Minneapolis from Greg Bovino, a US border patrol official who reports to the homeland security secretary.
Impeachment of cabinet secretaries is rare. Before the GOP-led House impeached Mayorkas in 2024, the only other cabinet member impeached was the war secretary William Belknap in 1876. Neither was convicted by the Senate.
Republicans have been comparatively guarded in their views toward Noem, who said that the federal agents who killed Pretti “fired defensive shots” and accused the VA nurse of arriving “at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement”.
Among the few to speak out is Utah senator John Curtis who on Monday said on X: “I disagree with Secretary Noem’s premature DHS response, which came before all the facts were known and weakened confidence.”
Maine’s Susan Collins, who is viewed as the Republican senator most in danger of losing re-election in the November midterms, told local broadcaster Maine Public on Tuesday that she had asked Noem to pause immigration enforcement operations in both Minnesota and her home state “so that they could be reviewed and far more targeted in their scope”.
