Federal Officials Anonymously Speak Out After Kristi Noem Made A Ridiculous Claim About Deporting A ‘Cannibal’
Multiple law enforcement officials have quashed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s preposterous claim about deporting an undocumented immigrant who also happened to be a “cannibal.”
Noem first made the accusation in an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Waters in June of last year while defending Florida’s federally funded immigrant detention facility, which the GOP nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
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“I was talking to a U.S. marshal just yesterday, and he was talking about the fact that they were deporting a plane load of illegals, and one of them was a cannibal,” she said. “He called himself a cannibal, ate other people and ate himself.”
Days later, Noem reiterated the story at a media roundtable after touring the detention facility with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and President Donald Trump.
The “cannibal,” she said, had to be removed from a plane by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials after he “started to eat himself.” (Watch the video below.)
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Noem notably did not identify the alleged man by name, and made no mention of his location or country of origin. This week, three officials from federal law enforcement agencies — including Noem’s own Department of Homeland Security — dismissed the story entirely in a report by The Intercept.
“It is completely false,” one senior federal law enforcement official, who spoke to the outlet anonymously, said.
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Later in the report, the official reiterated their statement, saying Noem’s claims are “completely made up” and “never happened.”
“I cannot condone somebody making up a story that absolutely never happened,” they said. One of the other officials also clarified that the story originated with Noem, and not the marshals she’d alluded to both on Fox News and during the roundtable.
When The Intercept reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment, however, a spokesperson stated that Noem had simply been resharing another person’s claim at the time.
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“What ‘fabrication’ of the story of the cannibal?” they said. “She was told that story on a deportation flight by one of the air marshals.”
Noem has frequently used dehumanizing language to defend the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. In recent weeks, she’s faced mounting pressure to resign from her position following the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents in Minneapolis.
Two Republican senators, Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), are among those calling for Noem’s ouster, while Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly (Ill.) introduced three articles of impeachment against her in January.
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Noem, however, has remained defiant while branding her critics “radicals.”
“I’m just doing my job,” she told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last month. “I’m following the law, enforcing the laws, like President Trump promised that he would do to keep people safe in this country.”