President Donald Trump announced on March 5 that Kristi Noem is out as head of the Department of Homeland Security and will be replaced by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, effective March 31. Mullin, like Noem, will need to be confirmed by the Senate.

This decision was long overdue, but at least Noem is finally out. She was never well-suited to her position, but she fit the Trump mold of making immigration enforcement a spectacle. That strategy got her the job, but it is also precisely what led to her losing it. 

Her ouster ends a needlessly volatile time for the Department of Homeland Security and hopefully lets the Trump administration reset and find a better way forward.

Why Kristi Noem is finally out at Homeland Security

The nail in the coffin for the former governor of South Dakota appears to be a series of advertisements costing $220 million from federal funds, for messaging that seems more tailored to promoting Noem’s personal brand. Those advertisements became a focal point of her recent testimony before Congress, with Trump saying she lied to Congress about getting his approval for the campaign. 

However, Noem should have been fired long ago. Her mismanagement of the Department of Homeland Security was put front and center by the botched Minneapolis saga, in which thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers flooded the streets in an attempt by the administration to grab headlines, rather than actually deliver results on immigration. 

That haphazard approach led to the deaths of two protesters interfering with immigration enforcement, and of whom Noem and others in the administration then decided to lie about. Lying in a grotesque manner, even about someone's death, isn’t unusual for the Trump administration. Noem’s real crime was that she had become a political liability for President Trump. 

Whatever the motivation, it is good that Noem is out of DHS. She wasn’t good at her job and lacked the basic human decency that is demanded by the office. I hope that Sen. Mullin approaches the position with more humility and competence. Americans need a strong and functional Department of Homeland Security. It was increasingly clear that Noem wasn't the one to provide that.

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

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