Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) has been tapped to head up the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after President Donald Trump on Thursday fired DHS Secretary Kristi Noem from the post.
“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Mullin will replace Noem on March 31, Trump said.
The president said Noem served well and had “numerous and spectacular results,” namely with respect to the U.S.–Mexico border’s security. Noem, a former governor of South Dakota, will be leaving for the newly created post of special envoy for the shield of the Americas, he wrote.
‘I Wasn’t Expecting the Call Today’
Mullin has said that he was just as surprised by the news as the rest of the nation.Personal Life
Mullin, 48, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.One-eighth Cherokee Indian, Mullin is a documented member of the Cherokee Nation and the only Native American in the U.S. Senate. The lawmaker traces his Cherokee ancestry back to North Carolina and Georgia, where his ancestors resided before being relocated to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears.
He also serves on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Mullin married his wife, Christie, in 1997. Today, the couple has six children, three of whom are adopted.
Political Career
Mullin entered Congress in 2012, being elected first to the House of Representatives.He ascended to the Senate in 2023, being elected in 2022 following the retirement of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).
In 2021, while still in the House, Mullin joined Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) in barricading the House chamber during the Jan. 6 certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. He saw the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt, and has said that the officer had no choice but to shoot.
In 2022, Mullin introduced legislation in that chamber to remove Trump’s impeachments from the Congressional Record. The Democratic House majority at the time left the push dead on arrival in the chamber.
DHS Reputation
Mullin takes the helm of DHS at the most difficult point of its roughly 23-year existence.Many of DHS’s functions remain popular and non-controversial with voters. These include patrolling U.S. waters and interdicting drug trafficking through the Coast Guard, providing emergency response to natural disasters and weather events through the Federal Emergency Management Administration, and cybersecurity defense.
DHS also oversees the Transportation Safety Administration and airport security.
However, in recent months, voter support for DHS’s immigration enforcement arms—most prominently Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—has plummeted.
DHS Remains Shut Down
DHS has remained partially shut down for weeks after Democrats demanded that ICE agents adhere to stricter rules around masking, identification, uniform, and judicial warrants, with Senate Democrats vowing to block any DHS funding measure that doesn’t include these provisions.Mullin, meanwhile, has mounted a defense of DHS in several media appearances since the shutdown started, including during an interview in mid-February with CNN, where he accused Democrats of engaging in “political theater.”
“They’re not stopping the Border Patrol from doing their job. All this is a political theater because the State of the Union is coming up a week from Tuesday,” Mullin said.
He has called the outgoing Noem “a friend,” telling ABC that he supported her role as head of the DHS and that she had a difficult job to perform.
Senate Confirmation
Mullin said he and the Trump administration will now work toward getting confirmed in the Senate and will speak with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).At least one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), wrote Thursday in a post on X that he would back Mullin to head DHS.
Mullin would only need a simple majority to be confirmed, meaning that he could be approved without any Democratic support as long as he has GOP backing.
The collegial upper chamber has historically been more favorable to its own members in cabinet nominations. At the start of Trump’s term, while the fate of other nominees remained uncertain, then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) easily slid to a unanimous confirmation in the upper chamber.