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Homeland Security Secretary<\/span> Kristi Noem told a preposterous story demonizing immigrants in high-profile public remarks alongside President Donald Trump and on Fox News last summer, about\u00a0a cannibal who ate other people and then, on his Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight, began to eat himself. At the time, The Intercept was unable to substantiate<\/a> any part of the tale.<\/p>\n Now, three officials from federal law enforcement agencies\u00a0\u2014 including Noem\u2019s own Department of Homeland Security \u2014 with knowledge of the allegations say the entire story was fabricated.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is completely false,\u201d said one senior law enforcement official who is familiar with the allegation but not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.<\/p>\n Two other federal law enforcement officials echoed this, telling The Intercept that the claims were ludicrous and that there was no evidence corroborating the story.<\/p>\n Asked for comment, a DHS spokesperson said Noem was simply relaying the claims of an air marshal. \u201cWhat \u2018fabrication\u2019 of the story of the cannibal?\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cShe was told that story on a deportation flight by one of the air marshals.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid growing calls for Noem to resign \u2014 after tarring Renee Nicole Good<\/a> and Alex Pretti<\/a> as guilty of \u201cdomestic terrorism\u201d in the immediate aftermath of their killings by federal agents \u2014 or face impeachment for obstruction of Congress, self-dealing, and violation of public trust, the false story about a supposed cannibal shows that a willingness to deceive the American public began long before Minneapolis.<\/p>\n \nThe false story about a supposed cannibal shows that a willingness to deceive the American public began long before Minneapolis.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n While falsehoods by Noem and the department have frequently been exposed during Trump\u2019s second term, they are rarely acknowledged, much less corrected, by the secretary or DHS.<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration\u2019s pattern of abusing innocent Americans in the street \u2014 from tear-gassing kids to shooting and killing citizens \u2014 and then turning around and lying about it to try and cover their asses cannot be allowed to continue,\u201d Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., told The Intercept.<\/p>\n Sitting alongside Trump<\/span> during a July press conference, Noem offered a prime example of the \u201ckind of deranged individuals that are on our streets in America, that we\u2019re trying to target and get out of our country.\u201d Noem said<\/a> that federal agents had \u201cdetained a cannibal and put him on a plane to take him home, and while they had him in his seat, he started to eat himself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Noem also told the story to Fox News\u2019 Jesse Watters<\/a>, claiming a U.S. Marshal said that the cannibal had previously eaten other people before he began to consume himself aboard an ICE deportation flight.<\/p>\n \u201cWas this bad hombre handcuffed to something and he was trying to chew his arm off so he could escape, or was he just hungry?\u201d Watters asked. \u201cYou know, what bothered me the most is that this U.S. Marshal just said it like it was normal,\u201d Noem replied, adding, \u201cHe said he was literally eating his own arms. That is what he did. He called himself a cannibal and ate other people and ate himself that day.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\u201cThere was no information about it. It never took place. It\u2019s a lie.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The three federal law enforcement officials said the story is fictional. \u201cThat is completely made up,\u201d the senior federal law enforcement official told The Intercept. \u201cThat never happened.\u201d All three law enforcement sources said attempts to verify Noem\u2019s claims came up empty.\u00a0\u201cThey went to ERO,\u201d one source said, referring to ICE\u2019s Enforcement and Removal Operations, a unit tasked with the standard immigration enforcement process: identifying, arresting, and deporting immigrants. \u201cThere was no information about it. It never took place. It\u2019s a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if the story came from Noem or the U.S. Marshals, one official was unequivocal: \u201cNoem.\u201d<\/p>\n The senior official told The Intercept that Noem had crossed a line: \u201cI cannot condone somebody making up a story that absolutely never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n After a July 2025 article by The Intercept<\/a> on the failure by Noem or DHS to answer questions about the cannibal incident, this reporter regularly asked about it to officials at ICE, DHS, the Marshals Service, and other federal law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n Noem failed to reply to close to two dozen requests for comment since July.<\/p>\n Months of messages and multiple phone calls finally yielded a non-denial denial. \u201cICE media folks went to ERO to ask them about it,\u201d Emily Covington, until recently an assistant director in ICE\u2019s Office of Public Affairs, told The Intercept in November. \u201cWe do not have information on a flight with a cannibal.\u201d\u00a0When asked if that was confirmation that the cannibal did not exist, Covington responded: \u201cThat is not what I\u2019m saying, whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n A Marshals Service spokesperson told The Intercept that information regarding its Justice Prisoner Air Transportation System flights is kept under wraps for the \u201csafety and security of all parties.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Members of federal law enforcement \u2014 including some speaking off the record \u2014 expressed discomfort with having to answer for what they said was a clumsy yarn told by Noem. (All agreed to allow The Intercept to reference these remarks.)\u00a0\u201cWhy would she even say something so insane as this?\u201d asked one of the officials, who said that even a young child would never make up such an outlandish story.<\/p>\n Another was at a loss to explain why Noem would tell a tale that was \u201cobviously utterly false.\u201d \u201cKristi Noem has blood on her hands,\u201d said Kelly<\/a>, who introduced the articles of impeachment. \u201cEach time, Secretary Noem lied to our faces and tried to justify the murder of innocent lives. People are disgusted by her.\u201d<\/p>\n Noem\u2019s department has followed her lead when it comes to false statements.<\/p>\n \u201cBorder Patrol law enforcement officers were ambushed by domestic terrorists that rammed federal agents with their vehicles. The woman, Marimar Martinez, driving one of the vehicles, was armed with a semi-automatic weapon and has a history of doxxing federal agents,\u201d reads an October press release<\/a> on DHS\u2019s website.<\/p>\n Recently, Martinez explained<\/a> to members of Congress how a car driven by federal officers sideswiped her truck and cut her off.\u00a0\u201cI could hear my back passenger window shatter, and I felt bullets continue to pierce my body,\u201d she testified. \u201cAs I attempted to drive to a safe location, I began to feel lightheaded. I looked down and saw blood gushing out of my arms and legs and realized I had been shot multiple times.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers, and federal prosecutors soon dropped all charges<\/a> against her.\u00a0But the October press release, complete with Martinez\u2019s photo, remains on the DHS website.<\/p>\n \u201cI am outraged that Marimar Martinez is still being smeared as a \u2018domestic terrorist\u2019 on DHS\u2019s official website, despite DOJ rightfully dropping all its baseless charges against her,\u201d said Duckworth.<\/p>\n DHS did not respond to a request about why Martinez is still cast as a domestic terrorist on their website.<\/p>\n Martinez\u2019s case is typical. A 2025 Associated Press investigation<\/a> of federal criminal cases against anti-immigration protesters in four Democratic-led cities found that of 100 people initially charged with felony assaults on federal agents, 55 saw their charges reduced to misdemeanors or dismissed outright. At least 23 pleaded guilty, most of them to reduced charges resulting in scant or no jail time.<\/p>\n In case after case, however, DHS refuses to acknowledge dropped or reduced charges. The department accused<\/a> Francisco Longoria of attempting to \u201crun over\u201d Customs and Border Protection officers and injuring them with his pickup truck. Criminal charges against Longoria were ultimately dropped. Still, DHS recently cited Longoria in a press release<\/a> about \u201cvehicle attacks\u201d on immigration officers.<\/p>\n Noem and DHS routinely paint immigrants rounded up by DHS as the worst of the worst<\/a> \u2014 and even created a website to showcase such persons. But last week, DHS admitted that the site was rife with inaccuracies<\/a> and that the charges against hundreds of immigrants listed were incorrect.<\/p>\n Noem routinely peddles blatant falsehoods before Congress, during press conferences, and on television\u00a0and has been excoriated for it by editorial boards from the mainstream New York Times<\/a> to the right-wing Free Press<\/a>. Lawmakers have similarly called her out<\/a> for what Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens termed<\/a> \u201cnonstop lies to the American people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Noem, for instance, declared \u201cno American citizens have been arrested or detained. We focus on those that are here illegally,\u201d during an October 30\u00a0press conference<\/a>\u00a0in Gary, Indiana. She added that claims to the contrary are \u201csimply not true and false reporting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But less than a month before, federal agents conducted a pre-dawn military-style raid \u2014 personally overseen by Noem \u2014 on a home in Illinois, using armored vehicles, a helicopter, and officers in tactical gear with high-powered rifles. That flashy operation resulted in the detention and arrests<\/a> of two U.S. citizens. Last October, a ProPublica investigation\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0170 cases of U.S. citizens who were arrested by immigration agents during Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n During a December House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Noem falsely claimed<\/a> that the DHS had \u201cnot deported U.S. citizens or military veterans.\u201d\u00a0Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., then released a letter <\/a>from Noem, dated September 2, 2025, that reads:\u00a0\u201cRegarding your question on the number of veterans that have been removed since January 20, 2025,\u00a0ICE has removed eight veterans.\u201d
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\nNoem has come<\/span> under frequent criticism for headline-grabbing stunts, aggressive operations, and hobbyhorse programs of dubious efficacy. The impeachment resolution<\/a> against Noem for high crimes and misdemeanors, filed in the wake of Pretti\u2019s death last month, now has 187 co-sponsors, a spokesperson for the office of Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., told The Intercept.<\/p>\n
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