EXCLUSIVE — More than 15 federal employees were forced out of senior posts at the Department of Homeland Security agency U.S. Customs and Border Protection during Kristi Noem’s time as secretary, according to three federal sources with direct knowledge.
Well over a dozen employees at CBP’s Washington headquarters were forced to resign, retire, relocate, or were terminated at the direction of Noem and special government employee Corey Lewandowski between last October and February this year. The number of CBP officials ousted by DHS leadership under Noem has not been previously reported.
The firings are significant because the incoming DHS secretary, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), will have to confront the internal tensions, morale problems, and operational issues that Noem and Lewandowski left behind at the department, if he is confirmed by the Senate to the post.
In several instances, those pushed out were award-winning government employees, each with decades of experience in the department, according to three officials who spoke with the Washington Examiner.
The Washington Examiner first reported in January that Noem and Lewandowski were waging a pressure campaign to get CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott to resign and that they had forced out five employees at that point.
The more recent employee actions suggest that Noem and Lewandowski were determined to purge those seen as allies to Scott, even in the days leading up to Noem’s own termination by President Donald Trump.
The DHS and CBP did not respond to requests for comment verifying the number of CBP employees that DHS leadership removed.
Senior CBP officials pink-slipped
Scott had called into question Lewandowski’s frequent involvement in immigration matters since early 2025, given that he was legally limited to working 130 days at the department. Scott had a reputation among senior CBP and DHS officials for pushing back against Noem and Lewandowski’s ideas for conducting immigration enforcement and for involving CBP employees, who are normally stationed on the border, not in the interior of the country, in those deportation efforts.
Eight sources disclosed in January that Noem and Lewandowski hoped that by pushing out senior members of Scott’s office, he would resign. Noem lacked the authority to fire a Senate-confirmed official, which Scott is.
The first termination occurred last October when Scott received an order from DHS leadership to fire Andrea Bright, assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Human Resources Management for Enterprise Services. Bright was in charge of hiring 8,500 new CBP employees wth money from the One Big, Beautiful Bill.
Noem and Lewandowski were said to be irritated by the time it was taking the human resources office to move Border Patrol agents in field leadership jobs into senior positions at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a separate agency within the DHS.
The Washington Examiner reported last October that DHS had plotted to bring border agents into ICE to overhaul operations and ramp up arrests inside the United States in regions where ICE officials were not meeting White House expectations.
In December and January, other officials were pushed out, including CBP’s chief operating officer, John Modlin, a lifetime Border Patrol agent. Modlin was awarded the Presidential Rank Award in 2024 for exceptional service before being called to Washington to be second-in-command of the 67,000-employee agency.
“I don’t think for one minute Donald Trump knows that a 30-year veteran of the Border Patrol [Modlin], who grinded out the whole entirety of the Biden administration, most of it in Washington, is getting treated like he just walked in off a f****** bus,” a second source said in January.
Modlin was given seven days to decide whether to resign, retire, or relocate his family to Boston for an unrelated job within the department. He chose to retire.
Scott’s chief of staff, James Kernochan, was abruptly moved in December 2025 to be deputy director at a different agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Several of the most senior employees within Scott’s office were replaced by people selected by Noem and Lewandowski, including deputy commissioner Joseph Mazzara, who worked directly under Noem as acting general counsel for the DHS in 2025.
Ntina Cooper was CBP’s top border wall official who personally briefed President Donald Trump about construction plans throughout his first term. Cooper was the executive assistant commissioner of enterprise services and oversaw the procurement of $5 billion in projects for the agency.
Additional employees at CBP’s Washington headquarters were pushed out in January and February.
Seven sources said in January that they anticipated that if Scott resigned or Trump was convinced by Noem and Lewandowski to fire him, DHS had planned to move Michael Banks, the national chief of the Border Patrol, to take over as CBP commissioner. Banks is viewed as a loyalist to Noem and is an appointed position by the secretary, rather than a nominee.
Banks has strong ties to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), who previously told the Washington Examiner in an interview that his work on the border with Banks was a leading reason Trump won in 2024, suggesting close ties between Texas and the Trump administration.
A second chance
Over 15 purged CBP employees could be rehired if Mullin wishes to bring some or all of them back when he takes office later this month, according to Washington-based federal employment attorney Michael C. Fallings.
“The incoming secretary can rehire these employees,” Fallings, managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC and chair of the Federal Labor and Employment Practice Group, wrote in an email.
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“Those employees may need to still go through the competitive process to be rehired, as the Secretary could still require them to compete against other employees for the position and still require them to pass any suitability requirements,” said Fallings. “However, there is not a ban for them to be rehired.”
The DHS and CBP did not comment when asked about plans to pursue rehiring any of those former employees once Noem leaves office later this month.