Kristi Noem was a patsy

ICE is killing people because of Trump.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is, as far as I can tell, a terrible person: A grifter and possible war criminal who slandered Renee Good and Alex Pretti when her agency killed them.

She was also a scapegoat.

Noem lost her job a few months ago, you’ll remember, in the hubub following the deaths of Good and Pretti. The Trump administration went through the motions of showing the public is was backing down from the war it had waged on immigrants and their allies in Minnesota. Everything would be good now, more professional, more orderly.

Only the killings haven’t stopped.

ICE officers killed two people last week - one in Texas, one in Maine - and it’s part of a trend. NYT: “The enforcement crackdown that began when President Trump took office for his second term has resulted in at least 22 people being fired on by federal immigration agents since January 2025. Six people, including three U.S. citizens, have been killed as a result of those shootings, nearly all of which involved officers firing into vehicles.”

A funny thing happened after last week’s deaths: Current DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered ICE to suspend its vehicle stops.

And then President Trump ordered the stops to be resumed.

Axios:

President Trump said ICE should continue using traffic stops to arrest immigrants after a recent directive suspended the tactic after two fatal shootings in Texas and Maine within a week.

The big picture: Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, “we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”

ICE is killing people because it is following President Trump’s directives and those directives naturally result in people’s deaths.

And that is going to continue to be the case:

So. Don’t cry for Kristi Noem, America. She doesn’t deserve your tears. But she’s gone and the ICE killings continue. President Trump has made it clear what he wants. Don’t blame his underlings for carrying out the king’s policies.