MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota’s immigrant rights groups doubt that a leadership change at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will lead to a substantial shift in enforcement tactics. President Donald Trump said Thursday he was tapping Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin to lead the department that includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). ...

Markwayne Mullin departs from the U.S. Capitol Building after voting on March 5, 2026, in Washington, D.C..

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images North America/TNS

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota’s immigrant rights groups doubt that a leadership change at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will lead to a substantial shift in enforcement tactics.

President Donald Trump said Thursday he was tapping Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin to lead the department that includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after a string of controversies, including the killing of two Minnesotans during Operation Metro Surge.

COPAL Minnesota, which advocates for the state’s Latino community, said Noem’s firing was a clear indication that community pressure and national scrutiny of ICE’s actions had an impact.

“The changes we are beginning to see did not happen by accident,” said Francisco Segovia, COPAL executive director, in a statement. “They happened because people chose bravery. Community members spoke up, documented abuse and questioned the leadership responsible for the treatment of our communities. But a new name at the top does not fix a broken system.”

The leadership change at Homeland Security comes as Minnesota slowly recovers a sense of normalcy following the massive influx of federal agents into the state over the last three months. If Mullin is confirmed by the Senate, he’ll set the tone for the controversial federal agency as Minnesota political leaders and advocacy groups seek redress for what happened in the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota is one of several groups to file lawsuits against Noem and the Trump administration over its ongoing immigration enforcement tactics, which the group describes as “egregious violations of the U.S. Constitution.”

“Nothing in President Trump’s announcement suggests that anyone in his administration, including DHS, plans to end the unlawful policies that they have used to violate the rights of thousands of Minnesotans,” said Catherine Ahlin-Halverson, a staff attorney for the ACLU, in a statement.

The Minnesota-based Immigrant Defense Network cautioned that Noem’s ouster “signals the growing instability and failures within federal immigration enforcement leadership,” and shows a need for accountability.

“Secretary Noem’s departure must not be treated as the closing chapter of this crisis. It must be the beginning of a full and independent investigation,” the Immigrant Defense Network wrote in a statement.

At a news conference Friday, Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN), emphasized that immigration enforcement actions continue in the Twin Cities even after the drawdown of Operation Metro Surge.

“They continue to target our community,” Hussein said.

He noted that Mullin, a former professional mixed martial arts fighter, once tried to fight the president of the Teamsters Union, who was testifying before a Senate committee.

“This is not someone who belongs in a secretary role, especially at the level of protecting American citizens from harm” Hussein said. “This is someone who was trying to cause harm, in an environment where he did not like the answers from a witness.”

Mullin was first elected to Congress in 2012 and won his Senate seat in a 2022 special election. He serves on several powerful committees, including Appropriations, Armed Services and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Mullin is a member of the Cherokee Nation and the only Native American elected to the Senate since 2005, when Ben Nighthorse Campbell retired.

His Senate confirmation is far from guaranteed.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said in an interview she does not think she will support Mullin “simply because of the policies of this administration.” But Minnesota’s senior senator, who is running for governor, said she’s worked with Mullin in the past.

“I do want to talk to him about the reforms that I believe need to be made to the agency, and I think he will listen. And I also want to hear his views on what he wants to do in the job,” Klobuchar said.

Fellow Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith is not sure how she plans to vote.

“My test is, do I have confidence that the person who they are looking to put in this position has the capacity to get this lawless, dangerous agency under control? I don’t have that confidence now,” Smith said in an interview.

Klobuchar, Smith and Mullin recently worked on legislation to designate the bald eagle as the national bird, which former President Joe Biden signed into law.

Mullin defended ICE agents shortly after the fatal shooting of Renee Good during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union‚" when asked whether Good’s actions warranted her death.

“Police officers are doing their job, and she was interfering in their job. Was a vehicle being used in a lethal manner? Was she accelerating towards a police officer? The answers to those are yes, and in that case, the officer has to make a split decision to protect his life, and that’s exactly what he did here,” Mullin said.

In another CNN interview, Mullin was asked whether there should be an investigation into Good’s killing. “If they’re investigating anything, they need to be investigating the paid protesters and who’s paying them to obstruct federal officers from doing their job.”

He also told CNN that he did not have any unanswered questions about the events around Good’s shooting. “What does it matter which bullet killed her? What does it matter how much she accelerated?”

Following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, Mullin declared during an interview on Fox News that Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey “both have blood on their hands” for the use of “the rhetoric that they use.”

”ICE wouldn’t even be on the streets if the local and state law enforcement was doing their job," he said in the same Fox interview.

Recently he’s publicly defended funding DHS, which has been in a partial shutdown for weeks, as Democrats have rejected any additional funding for the agency until a slew of demands are met. The demands include requiring ICE agents to unmask, wear identification and receive enhanced training.

Mullin has said he is opposed to unmasking ICE agents because it’s led to doxing in the past. But he has said that he may be open to having agents use badges identifying which agency they work for. He has also said he is open to allowing ICE agents to receive more training.

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—Elliot Hughes of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.