Kristi Noem Must Be Impeached

Bruce Springsteen used the first major protest song of 2026, his “Streets of Minneapolis,” to scathingly condemn the violent assault that a strike force of 3,000 masked and armed agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) waged against Minnesota’s largest city. The American bard describes how, in the first weeks of January, Minneapolis became “a city on fire…under the boots of an occupier” and recounts that “there were bloody footprints where mercy should have been and two died in the snowy streets: Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” Springsteen wasn’t just grieving; it denounced the Trump administration’s propagandistic distortion of the truth about Pretti, a Department of Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse, shot to death by Border Patrol agents on January 24, and Good, a poet and mother of three, shot in the head by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on January 7. And the boss blasted “Noem’s dirty lies”.

The lies told by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, including wildly baseless claims that Good and Pretti committed acts of “domestic terrorism,” have inspired widespread demands for accountability for the most dangerously dishonest of Donald Trump’s wretched cabinet appointees. There is a lot of competition for the title of “worst of the worst” in the Trump cabinet. But Noem’s attempts to defend the indefensible, her personal and official scandals, her mismanagement and especially her outrageous and propagandistic lies about Good and Pretti are not only shameful. They are relentless.

Members of Congress, regardless of political affiliation, must recognize the constitutional duty to remove this gangster from the position of public trust that she so blatantly abused. The will of the people is already clear. Trump and Noem thought they could intimidate the public into silence. But tens of thousands of Americans took to the streets of Minneapolis and other cities across the country to demand the abolition of ICE because they chose to believe their own eyes, contrary to Noem’s lies.

The case against Noem is now so strong that even high-ranking Republicans are arguing for her impeachment, with North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis angry at the party leader’s “incompetence.” [Department of] Homeland Security,” adding, “She doesn’t know how to lead, how to defuse. It exposes ICE agents to dangerous situations; it exposes American citizens to deadly situations. Although Trump attempted to distance himself from some of Noem’s more extreme statements and policies in late January, the president’s response to Tillis and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who said the secretary should go, was to call the senators “losers” and announce that Noem would stay because “she’s doing a really good job.”

With Trump’s intervention, it is up to members of Congress to act. That’s exactly what many Democrats have done, part of the most significant movement for accountability yet seen in the year of chaos that Trump and his inner circle of aides, such as Stephen Miller, have unleashed. In addition to tentative calls from Republicans for Noem’s resignation or firing, a vigorous movement to impeach the cabinet secretary has drawn support from more than 180 Democrats in the House of Representatives as of February 2. Supporters of impeachment have rallied around a resolution sponsored by Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) that accuses Noem of obstructing Congress’ oversight of DHS-run detention centers; for “using his position for personal gain while inappropriately using taxpayer dollars”; for “using his position to circumvent the federal contracting process and [funnel] federal funds to his friends’ companies”; and for “repeatedly [violating] the Immigration and Nationality Act, the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and the due process rights of United States citizens in ordering [ICE] making widespread warrantless arrests, forgoing due process, and using violence against U.S. citizens, legal residents, and other individuals.

The resolution notes that, in Renee Good’s case, “despite the video showing the officer on the side of the vehicle as he fired and the vehicle moving away from the officer on the second and third shots, Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem publicly asserts that the officer was in danger and in front of the vehicle when he fired.” » This lie highlights the most compelling argument for Noem’s removal: she is a determined propagandist who seeks to distort the truth, undermine investigations, and divide Americans. And everything suggests that she intends to continue lying to the American people, the media and Congress.

None of the House members proposing to impeach Noem are naive. They know that the full constitutional promise of the power of impeachment was undermined by Senate Republicans who refused to hold members of their own party accountable, including Trump himself. And they know that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will do everything in his power to keep Trump and his appointees from being held accountable — just as he did during the fight to release records involving convicted sex offender and longtime Trump associate Jeffrey Epstein. But anger over Noem’s reckless actions and blistering dishonesty has grown, which could force Congress to act in the same way that U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) ultimately did in their fight to release the Epstein files.

Khanna became a vocal supporter of Noem’s impeachment because she “presided over agents killing American citizens.” The California representative includes Noem’s impeachment on a list of steps he says must be taken to rein in ICE and DHS. “Congress is not powerless. Democrats must unite around a real agenda,” says Khanna, who calls for opposition to future funding for DHS, repeal of the $75 billion multi-year funding for ICE that Congress approved last year, investigations and prosecutions of ICE agents who broke the law, and a strategy to “dismantle and replace ICE with an agency that exercises oversight.”

To this list, we would add formal congressional action to prohibit ICE agents from interfering with the 2026 midterm elections.

We understand that some will wonder why impeaching Noem should be a priority when there are so many threats to address and there are so many other members of the Trump administration who deserve to be impeached (including Trump himself). Our answer is that this is an accountability movement that has gained traction, has the potential to attract at least some Republican support, and, above all, will send a message to the entire administration: to quote Springsteen, “we will remember the names of those who died in the streets of Minneapolis”—and the lies that were told about Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and all the others who died on Kristi Noem’s watch.