The Democratic representative Robin Kelly on Wednesday formally introduced articles of impeachment against Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, following the fatal shooting of a US citizen by an immigration agent in Minneapolis last week.
“Secretary Noem has brought her reign of terror to the Chicagoland area, LA, New Orleans, Charlotte, Durham and communities east, north, to south to east to west” Kelly said in a press conference on Wednesday. “She needs to be held accountable for her actions”.
The new push comes amid mounting national outrage over the death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, killed at the wheel of her car on a residential street by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer during high-octane deployments of law enforcement in cities and towns across the country.
Kelly, an Illinois Democrat, said she filed three articles of impeachment against Noem – obstruction of Congress, violation of public trust, and self-dealing – and has the backing of 70 members of Congress.
While Noem and the Trump administration have characterized the incident as an act of “domestic terrorism” by a “professional agitator”, video evidence and local officials have sharply contested that narrative. The Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, described the shooting as a reckless use of power and demanded the agency leave the city. The administration has responded by sending more federal agents, as tensions between officers and residents escalate.
“How silly during a serious time. As ICE officers are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them, Rep. Kelly is more focused on showmanship and fundraising clicks than actually cleaning up her crime-ridden Chicago district,” said a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. “We hope she would get serious about doing her job to protect American people, which is what this Department is doing under Secretary Noem.”
In response, Kelly said of Noem: “You have violated your oath of office and there will be consequences.”
Late last year, the representative Delia Ramirez, a fellow Illinois Democrat, moved to impeach Noem, amid an immigration crackdown in Chicago.
They accuse the secretary of willfully obstructing congressional oversight by withholding appropriated funds and repeatedly blocking lawmakers from entering DHS facilities. It further alleges a violation of public trust through the use of “warrantless arrests” and the use of “violence against US citizens and lawful individuals”. It also charges Noem with self-dealing for “inappropriately” using taxpayer dollars to fund an ad campaign for ICE recruitment, and awarding the $200m recruitment contract to a firm run by the husband of the senior DHS official and chief spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin.
Despite rising fury among Democrats over the administration’s increasingly violent enforcement tactics, the party is at odds over how to respond. House Democratic leaders have not endorsed Kelly’s impeachment effort, which is unlikely to succeed in the Republican-controlled House. Other Democrats have called for using an upcoming government funding deadline to try to rein in ICE and slash funding to the agency. Kelly, who is running in a competitive Democratic primary to replace retiring Senator Dick Durbin in Illinois, has positioned herself more aggressively on the issue than leadership.
“We haven’t ruled anything in and we haven’t ruled anything out. Everything is on the table from the standpoint of complete and total accountability,” the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters on Monday. Noem, Jeffries added, was “completely and totally unqualified” and should be “run out of town as soon as possible” but he questioned whether impeachment was “the best way to accomplish that objective”.
In 2024, House Republicans impeached Joe Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, breaking precedent and pushing through charges that even some in their own party warned were political in nature. The Senate dismissed the charges on the basis that they did not”allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor”.
Impeachment requires a majority vote in the House to approve the charges, and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict and remove an official from office.
