Pressure mounts on Kristi Noem as Republicans join calls for her to goNEWS | 28 January 2026Top 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, as two Republican senators join calls for her to resign.
The ultimatum from Democrats came after a majority of the House 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, and 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.”
But in a sign of mounting frustration with the DHS secretary, two Republican senators also called on Noem to resign. The retiring North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told reporters that Noem’s conduct “should be disqualifying”, while Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski said the secretary “needs to be accountable to the chaos and some of the tragedy that we have seen”.
Other Republicans, however, have said they would favor new guidelines or “policy changes” at the homeland security department and a review of Pretti’s killing.
The Democratic congresswoman Robin Kelly 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 homeland security department because it includes money for 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 from across the spectrum have also joined in the calls for Noem’s ouster.
Earlier, John Fetterman, a moderate Democratic senator representing 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, whom Republicans blame for the large number of border crossings during the Democrat’s presidency.
Fetterman was joined by Elizabeth Warren, 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.
“She must be impeached and removed from office immediately.”
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 Trump 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.
The 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 on Noem, who said the federal agents who killed Pretti “fired defensive shots”. She also accused him of arriving “at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement”.
Among the few to speak out was 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 she had asked Noem to pause immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota and her home state “so that they could be reviewed and far more targeted in their scope”.Author: Chris Stein. Source
