Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her critics cannot get over a specific incident from her past.
In her 2024 memoir, No Going Back, she said that she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, calling the animal aggressive.
She wrote in the book about her decision, acknowledging its difficulty but stating she believed it was necessary. “I hated that D og” she admitted. The incident occurred about twenty years ago, and she buried the dog in a gravel pit on her property.
Noem has publicly reaffirmed her stance and explained the logic behind her actions. In an interview on the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast with Miranda Devine, she explained that the dog had attacked livestock and had also tried to attack her.
“The dog was actively killing animals for fun, had been massacring chickens and then had tried to bite me and attack me,” Noem told Devine. “That is something that happens from time to time, and keeping children and people safe is incredibly important.”
Despite criticism, Noem remained clear toward her commitment to animal welfare. “I absolutely love animals, I’ve always had dogs, I still have a dog that goes everywhere with me, and that situation there was hard,” she said.
According to excerpts from Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program by NBC News reporter Julia Ainsley, Donald Trump considered Noem as a potential vice presidential candidate in 2024 before selecting JD Vance.
She was ultimately not chosen due to the controversy surrounding the dog shooting. However, Trump later nominated her for secretary of Homeland Security during his second term, where she received strong support from long-term MAGA supporters.
Meanwhile, a report by The Independent claimed that “Trump actually saw this particular biographical detail as an asset in his Homeland Security Secretary—it was one of the reasons he chose her.”
Noem faced significant criticism after the memoir’s release in May 2024. A South Dakota native and the state’s first female governor, she grew up in the countryside, helping run her family’s farm and ranch near Hazel.
Her strong conservative positions on gun rights, abortion, and immigration have often drawn criticism, with several senators and social media users calling for her resignation.
Noem also faced media scrutiny for her leadership of ICE operations, which have been controversial. After a Border Patrol agent shot Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse, in Minneapolis, Noem stated that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” and was an immediate threat to agents.
In December, Rep. Delia Ramirez urged that Noem resign or be impeached, calling for a formal investigation into her leadership.
Ramirez’s request, in a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, focuses on allegations that Noem misled Congress and the public, misused funds appropriated by lawmakers, and ignored court orders and congressional oversight.
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She pointed to reports that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been deported by Kristi Noem and by immigration authorities, a figure she said contradicts Noem’s repeated claims that enforcement efforts are limited to people in the country unlawfully.
Edward Kissam, an academic researcher on the latest political unrest and immigration policies, said that the Department of Homeland Security’s claim that nearly 2 million unauthorized immigrants have “self-deported” in 2025.
In a similar incident to the memoir, in October 2025, ICE agents allegedly shot and killed a Texas family’s dog, a Rottweiler named Chop, during a raid at their home on September 9.
The shooting has sparked national outrage and renewed scrutiny of immigration enforcement practices, with massive hate on social media.
