Trump says Kristi Noem won't resign despite Minneapolis shooting

President Donald Trump affirmed Tuesday that his Homeland Security chief, Kristi Noem, will remain in office despite the backlash sparked by a deadly shooting last Saturday by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.

Democrats are demanding Noem's resignation in the wake of the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was killed while protesting immigration raids.

"No," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if the secretary of homeland security would resign after the protester's death. "I think she's doing a very good job. The border is totally secure," the president exclaimed, in his first on-camera remarks since the shooting.

"You know, you forget we had a border that I inherited where millions of people were coming through. Now we have a border where no one is coming through. They come into our country only legally. So you have to remember those things. You know people forget," Trump said. 

For its part, The New York Times (NYT) reported that Trump held a nearly two-hour meeting Monday night with Noem, who has favored forceful immigration raids and described Pretti as a "domestic terrorist."

The meeting came on the same day the president announced he would send his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minneapolis in a sign he might prefer Homan's more targeted approach to arrests of undocumented migrants.

House Democrats to investigate Kristi Noem

The Washington Post (WaPo) reported that House Democrats are preparing to open an investigation against Kristi Noem as soon as next week, laying the groundwork for possible impeachment proceedings.

According to the WaPo, unlike a typical impeachment investigation in Congress, Democrats plan to conduct it without Republican involvement. Still, they acknowledge that they are unlikely to succeed in ousting Noem in the short term, but believe that launching an official investigation will send a signal that they are taking concerns about what happened in Minnesota seriously.

"We understand Democrats are in a minority, but that doesn’t mean that we have to sit on our thumbs and do nothing," said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Mississippi) in an interview picked up by The Washington Post. The Representative is the the ranking Democratic member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Democrats call for Noem's head

For his part, Hakeem Jeffries, House Democratic minority leader, tweeted Tuesday on X that Donald Trump "must fire Kristi Noem immediately." Otherwise, he warned, "Democrats will initiate impeachment proceedings against her in the House."

Likewise, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (PA) on Tuesday called on President Trump to impeach Kristi Noem, following the fatal shooting of a second protester in Minneapolis in less than a month.

"President Trump: I make a direct appeal to immediately fire Secretary Noem. Americans have died. She is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy," the Democrat said in a statement posted on X.

"Do not make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary," he wrote referring to Joe Biden's decision to back his Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, despite numerous Republican complaints about his stewardship.

For his part, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stepped up the political pressure on the secretary Monday by posting a harsh message on X in which he said, "Kristi Noem is a liar. Kristi Noem is incompetent. Kristi Noem is vicious. Kristi Noem must be fired."

Likewise, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) claimed that the Homeland Security secretary committed an "impeachable" offense by calling Pretti a "domestic terrorist."

"I think it’s ridiculous that someone called, you know, this poor victim a terrorist, a violent terrorist. You know, that right there is impeachable," Gallego told MS NOW's Katy Tur on Monday.

"She lied about a citizen to justify his murder. And that is not leadership. The president should ask for her resignation. But if not, I do think the House should impeach," he added.

Separately, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced Monday that the Homeland Security secretary will testify before that committee on March 3.