Trump has no plans to fire Homeland Security chief after Minneapolis unrest: 'She's doing a very good job'

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, will remain in office, despite opposition calls for her resignation. The leader of the White House believes that Noem is doing “a very good job”, reports AFP.

Asked by a journalist if Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a central figure of his administration's anti-immigration policy, might leave the post, the US president answered flatly: “No.”

On the other hand, Donald Trump qualified as “very sad” the death of American citizen Alex Pretti, killed on Saturday by federal agents in the city of Minneapolis in the north of the United States.

He also distanced himself from his influential adviser Stephen Miller, who had labeled the slain man “a murderer”.

“No,” the US president told reporters when asked if he would use that word himself to describe the 37-year-old nurse.

After the death of Alex Pretti, who was shot to death by a Border Patrol agent on Saturday, Kristi Noem immediately claimed that law enforcement acted in self-defense.

But this version was quickly disputed by the analysis of the video images that captured the incident.

According to the American media, Donald Trump would have been very unhappy with the way Noem responded to this death – the second in a few weeks, after Renee Good, another American citizen, was fatally shot by a member of the anti-immigration police (ICE) on January 7, also in Minneapolis.

The New York Times reported that the president received the head of the Department of Homeland Security for two hours on Monday night.

Follower of shocking stagings, Kristi Noem embodies for the opponents of Donald Trump all the brutality of the policy of mass deportations promoted by the Republican.

For example, she proudly posed in front of inmates crammed into a famous mega-prison in El Salvador.

Trump instead fired Greg Bovino, the spearhead of the fight against immigration

Meanwhile, a Department of Homeland Security official and other sources familiar with the matter told The Atlantic on Monday that Greg Bovino has been fired as “commanding general” of the US Border Patrol and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon.

The same sources told the magazine that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close aide Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino's biggest supporters, were also at risk of losing their jobs.

The White House insisted late Monday, however, that Noem “will continue to lead the Department of Homeland Security with the full confidence and support of the president.”

Politico reported that White House allies are increasingly blaming one person for the chaos of the crackdown on migrants in Minneapolis, and that is Kristi Noem.

Sources also revealed to CNN that Trump administration officials were deeply frustrated this weekend with how Bovino and Noem handled the fallout from the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. According to an official, Trump spent several hours on Sunday and Monday watching the news and was unhappy with how his administration was being perceived.