President Donald Trump is sending his "border czar" to handle the fallout from another fatal shooting during a Department of Homeland Security operation in Minnesota, and CNN's Harry Enten flagged that as a sign that deeply unpopular Kristi Noem might be ousted as secretary.
A Customs and Border Patrol officer shot and killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti over the weekend, less than three weeks after another officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good, and Trump announced that Homan would lead the immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis area.
"I'm not really surprised that President Trump is sending Tom Homan in because ICE, DHS, Kristi Noem have been a political disaster, because, just take a look here," Enten said. "I mean, ICE's net approval rating during Trump's terms, you go back to term number one. Look, it was it's pretty even at zero points. You go to June 2025, right, that was when all that stuff was going on in Los Angeles. They dropped down, look at this, minus-17 points – way in the basement. But then after Minneapolis, it's even lower, minus-27 points on the net approval rating of ICE."
"Of course, this all being done under Kristi Noem, so know what's going on in Minneapolis is not popular at all," he added. "What's been going on during this second term under ICE, under the Trump administration, under Kristi Noem has very much not been popular, and it's only getting more and more unpopular."
Approval for the agency Noem heads has suffered under her leadership, as well.
"We'll start with ICE and then we'll raise it to DHS, and, again, it's just the same exact story, right?" Enten said. "DHS is doing an excellent or good job, the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term, look where it was in late 2017, right? Right about at this point, 59 percent. That's pretty gosh-darn good.
"But look at where it is now in Trump term number two. By late last year it was down to 42 percent. So this is the same story that we're seeing. No matter which poll question we look at the popularity of ICE, of DHS has completely fallen under the second Trump term. The second Trump administration, where what we were seeing during Trump's term number one was, hey, ICE, DHS pretty popular, certainly not unpopular, but all the actions in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, in these major American cities have been very much rejected by the American people. It has been a political disaster for the second Trump administration."
That's why the president's move to send Homan to Minnesota could be significant.
"I just think there's a real reason for it, and that's because Kristi Noem, simply put, has not been popular, and everything she's done, for the most part, has not been popular," Enten said. "I mean, just look at her net approval rating in July of 2025. It was minus-11 points. It's actually gotten more unpopular now at minus-16 points. I looked at every single poll that has been conducted on Kristi Noem's popularity, every single one, the net approval rating has been negative. ICE is negative, DHS is negative. As I said at the top, this has been an absolute political disaster for the president of the United States, it's not much of a surprise to me if he wants to push Noem to the side."
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