Kristi Noem is being removed as homeland security secretary after months of controversy and bipartisan criticism.
She was the official in charge of delivering on President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Noem boosted deportations to 675,000 in the president’s first year, though that fell below the White House’s stated goal of one million per year.
Trump announced that Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin would replace Noem, who was in the job for a just over a year.
Here are some of the headlines she made during her tenure.
Alex Pretti and Renee Good killings
Immigration operations in the Midwestern state of Minnesota spawned the biggest crisis during her stint.
The enforcement blitz sparked protests in Minneapolis and two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were fatally shot in confrontations with federal agents.
Noem accused Good and Pretti of domestic terrorism. But mobile phone and body camera footage raised questions about her department’s accounts of the incidents.
Several Republicans soured on Noem and joined Democrats in calling for her resignation.
During hearings in the US House and Senate this week, Noem offered condolences to the families, but did not apologise for her domestic terrorism comments.
Luxury jets
Noem has faced repeated accusations of wasting agency funds.
She approved the purchase of two Gulfstream G700 luxury jets, and the department had plans to acquire a third aircraft, a Boeing 737, for about $70m (£52m).
Noem defended the spending, saying that as well as being “long-range command and control aircraft”, the fleet would be used for deportations.
At a Senate hearing this week, a senator showed a picture of a plush bedroom that was apparently on board one of the jets. Noem acknowledged the plane had a bedroom, but said it was being “refurbished”.
Horseback ad blitz
Reports of a $220m (£165m) ad campaign starring Noem is reported to have angered Trump.
The commercial, which urged immigrants to self-deport, featured her wearing a cowboy hat and riding on horseback across a prairie with a herd of bison.
At a congressional hearing this week, Republican Senator John Kennedy pressed Noem about whether Trump had approved the ad.
She suggested the president had signed off on it, but Trump told the Reuters news agency he “never knew anything about it”.
Noem was also grilled by lawmakers about the contracting process for the ads and how Republican-connected firms were awarded the bids.
‘Blanketgate’
Noem’s de-facto chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski, has also courted controversey.
According to reports from Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, he fired a Coast Guard pilot after blaming him misplacing Noem’s blanket as they switched from one plane to another on a trip.
Lewandowski reportedly walked into the cockpit of the Coast Guard plane as it was ascending and demanded to know where Noem’s blanket was. In a text with Reuters, Lewandowski disputed the account of the incident, which the media dubbed “blanketgate”.
During a congressional hearing this week, Noem was asked by a lawmaker if she had had “sexual relations” with Lewandowski. She described the suggestion as “tabloid garbage”. Both have previously denied rumours of an affair.
Lewandowski will also be leaving homeland security department, it emerged on Thursday.
Photo op at Salvadoran jail
Last March, Noem made a visit to the notorious Cecot prison in El Salvador, which had agreed to take deportees from the US.
Noem posed for photos in front of prisoners who stood quietly at the bars of a crowded cell, and said she had arranged for some of the detainees to be held at the facility.
She also drew attention on the jail visit by wearing a $50,000 (£37,000) gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch.
Noem had previously attracted controversy after a false anecdote appeared in her memoir that she once met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Her account of shooting a family dog, Cricket, was apparently true.
By BBC News
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