DHS

The Department of Homeland Security is a US federal cabinet department established in 2002 in the wake of the September 11 attacks, consolidating 22 federal agencies under a single department with roughly 240,000 employees and an annual budget of approximately $60 billion. Its REMIT spans border security, immigration enforcement, cybersecurity, counter-terrorism, and disaster response, carried out through sub-agencies including FEMA, CBP, ICE, TSA, CISA, and the Secret Service.

DHS changed leadership twice in 2026. President Trump fired Secretary Kristi Noem on 5 March, moving her to a newly created role as Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas; the Senate confirmed Markwayne Mullin, a former Oklahoma senator, as her successor on 23 March, and he was sworn in the following day. The department's own Inspector General opened a review on 1 July 2026 into whether Noem-era "management directed reassignments" of senior staff, which shifted career officials out of cybersecurity and disaster response roles and into immigration enforcement and cut the career Senior Executive Service headcount from 723 to 513, complied with federal law. Separately, DHS continues to administer citizenship screening of voter rolls via the SAVE system under Trump's 31 March voting executive order, and the litigation over it remains unsettled rather than resolved: the DOJ sued 29 states that refused to hand over registration lists, and the expanded SAVE System carries a reported 17% error rate in flagging non-citizen voters . A DC federal judge ruled the expanded SAVE System unlawful on 22 June and ordered DHS to unwind it, but a Florida judge then ordered DHS on 9 July to restore SAVE access for Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana, finding DHS had breached a settlement; a further DC hearing is set for 20 July, so the programme's legal status is contested rather than settled.

DHS is also at the centre of security planning for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a role Secretary Mullin has led personally, describing the 38-day, 11-host-city operation as equivalent to "78 Super Bowls" and running what DHS calls the largest counter-drone operation in US history. Sub-agency FEMA distributed $625 million in security grants to host cities on 20 March, weeks late after a partial DHS shutdown caused by Congressional deadlock over immigration enforcement spending, with a further $250 million in counter-drone grants added in May. Nearly all 78 matches were designated SEAR 1 or SEAR 2; the 19 July final, both semi-finals and the bronze-medal match were all rated Special Event Assessment Rating 1 (SEAR 1), DHS's highest security tier, with expanded Secret Service presence .