On Thursday, March 6, US President Donald Trump fired Kristi Noem, former secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, amid mounting political pressure following deadly immigration enforcement operations carried out under her leadership.

Noem oversaw the Trump administration’s mass deportation drive, and the deployment of heavily armed agents from the US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal forces across several cities in the US.

Her tenure came under intense scrutiny after ICE agents killed US citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. In response to the killings, a statewide general strike shut down thousands of businesses throughout Minnesota and drew about 100,000 people into the streets of downtown Minneapolis two times in two consecutive weeks. The second general strike spread to cities across the United States, in a historic national action that activists say has shifted the landscape of the labor and social movements in the country, influencing labor strikes and other forms of resistance throughout society.

Trump has announced his intent to replace Noem with Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator and close ally. Noem is expected to move to a newly created administration role focused on US military objectives in the Western hemisphere and will be presiding over this weekend’s Shield of the Americas Summit.

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