The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday reversed a policy imposed by former Secretary Kristi Noem that required the secretary to personally sign off on every contract and grant worth more than $100,000, a directive that, by the department's own admission, had bottlenecked operations across DHS and its sprawling network of agencies.
Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who replaced Noem after her 13-month tenure, rescinded what DHS internally called the "$100,000 contract review memo." The move lifts the approval requirement across all DHS components, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Transportation Security Administration.
Contracts worth more than $25 million will still require the secretary's review, a Homeland Security official said. Everything below that threshold now returns to the component agencies that handle day-to-day operations, the people closest to the mission.
Noem first signed the directive on June 11, 2025. On paper, the idea had a certain logic: the secretary would personally vet spending to root out waste. In practice, it created a chokepoint that funneled thousands of contracts through a single office. DHS is one of the largest departments in the federal government, and a $100,000 threshold captured an enormous volume of routine procurement.
The consequences showed up fastest at FEMA. A review by Democratic staff on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released last month, found that the directive produced what it called "extraordinary bureaucratic gridlock." By September 8, 2025, the review counted 1,034 FEMA contracts, grants, or disaster-assistance awards that were either delayed or still pending approval.
The average request took three weeks to approve.
Three weeks may sound minor in Washington terms. It is not minor when the clock is running on disaster relief. The Senate committee review identified delays to assistance tied to the July 2025 Texas flash floods, Hurricane Helene response, housing inspections, temporary housing, and crisis counseling, the kind of work where every week of bureaucratic lag means real suffering for real people.
Before Noem's departure, Republican frustration with her leadership had already spilled into the open on Capitol Hill, with senators publicly questioning whether DHS was being managed effectively.
Mullin alluded to the contract review change during his confirmation hearing earlier this month. His framing was blunt. As CBS News reported, the new secretary told lawmakers:
"I'm not a micromanager. We put people in, we empower them to make decisions. What is required to come up to my level, we'll make decisions."
Mullin added that he would maintain clear communication with the heads of every DHS agency about their authority and spending parameters.
"We will have a very clear line of communication with every one of our agencies' heads on their authority that you gave to them within their parameters, and we'll discuss, but we're also going to be very responsible for the taxpayer dollars."
DHS said Mullin had "re-evaluated the contract processes to make sure DHS is serving the American taxpayer efficiently." The department framed the reversal as empowering its components to carry out their mission to "protect the homeland and make America safe again."
The contract review reversal arrives against a complicated operational backdrop. DHS said it continued to be hampered by a partial government shutdown. TSA officers and other DHS employees have been working without pay during the funding lapse.
CBP and ICE law enforcement agents have not been directly affected, thanks to billions of dollars those agencies received through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. But the agencies depend on far more than badge-carrying agents. CBP relies on contractors for surveillance aircraft, drones, sensors, vehicle fleets, facility maintenance, and logistics support. ICE holds some of the largest contracts in the immigration detention system.
Since Mullin was sworn in, ICE has started reevaluating plans to convert warehouses throughout the United States into detention facilities, DHS officials said. That kind of large-scale infrastructure work runs on contracts, contracts that, under the old memo, would have required the secretary's personal review at the $100,000 level.
The leadership transition at DHS came after President Trump removed Noem and tapped the Oklahoma senator to take over the department. The change reflected a recognition that DHS needed a different management approach at a moment when the department faces simultaneous demands on border security, disaster response, and counterterrorism.
DHS used its statement on the contract policy to call on "Democrats to stop holding DHS hostage." Congressional Democrats have declined to fully fund DHS, mainly ICE and CBP, unless the Trump administration agrees to certain immigration enforcement reforms, including barring federal agents from wearing masks during operations.
That standoff has left the department in a strange position: the administration is trying to streamline internal operations and expand enforcement capacity while Congress withholds the money to do it. Mullin's move to ditch the $100,000 review threshold removes one self-imposed obstacle. The congressional funding impasse is another matter entirely.
The political scrutiny around Noem's tenure at DHS extended well beyond the contract memo. Congressional Democrats even asked the DOJ to pursue criminal charges against Noem over her congressional testimony, a move that underscored just how politically toxic her time at the department had become.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to control government spending. Taxpayers should expect their leaders to watch the checkbook. But a policy that forces every $100,000 contract across a department with 240,000 employees through one person's desk is not fiscal discipline. It is a bottleneck dressed up as oversight.
The results proved it. Over a thousand FEMA awards stalled. Disaster victims waited. Routine procurement ground to a crawl. The $25 million threshold Mullin has kept in place still gives the secretary a meaningful check on big-ticket spending without strangling the department's ability to function.
Mullin appears to understand something his predecessor did not: you cannot run a department the size of DHS like a governor's office. Empowering agency heads to do their jobs, within clear parameters and with real accountability, is not loose management. It is how serious organizations operate under pressure.
Conservatives who care about government efficiency should welcome the fix, and remember that the real fight for taxpayer accountability is still in Congress, where Democrats are holding homeland security funding hostage over mask rules.
