logo
Why Won't ICE Comment on Kristi Noem's Cannibal Stories?

Why Won't ICE Comment on Kristi Noem's Cannibal Stories?

The Intercept3 days ago
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. government deported a cannibal that 'ate other people' and then, while on a flight from the U.S., became so 'deranged' that he began to 'eat himself.'
Noem first shared the dubious tale late last week during an interview with Fox News's Jesse Watters. The Cabinet secretary said that a U.S. marshal 'off-handedly' told her about a cannibal on a 'planeload of illegals.' When Noem asked, 'What do you mean he was a cannibal?' the marshal replied: 'He started to eat his own arms.'
Watters probed further. 'Was this bad hombre handcuffed to something and he was trying to chew his arm off so he could escape, or was he just hungry?' he asked. 'You know, what bothered me the most is that this U.S. Marshal just said it like it was normal,' Noem replied, adding, 'He 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.'
Noem repeated the story on Tuesday as she and President Donald Trump toured a migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, officially named 'Alligator Alcatraz,' that will house up to 5,000 people and cost around $450 million a year to run.
'The other day, I was talking to some marshals that have been partnering with ICE,' she said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 'They said that they had detained 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 and they had to get him off and get him medical attention.'
As Trump nodded along, Noem continued: 'These are the kind of deranged individuals that are on our streets in America, that we're trying to target and get out of our country because they are so deranged they don't belong here.'
Noem did not reply to repeated requests by The Intercept for further information about the alleged incident and the supposed cannibal immigrant.
Cannibals — real and imagined — have been the source of fear and lurid fascination for Westerners stretching back to at least the 15th century, when Christopher Columbus kicked off the colonization of the Americas. Panic over supposed subhuman, barbarous savages helped to justify all manner of racism, violence, exclusion, assimilation, territorial expansion, and conquest. These weaponized racial myths are baked into colonial rhetoric and foundational to Western bigotry.
Despite issuing an endless stream of sensational press releases about deportations and crimes by immigrants, ICE has not referenced the cannibal immigrant deportee mentioned by Noem in any of its reports.
Requests for additional information sent to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security went unanswered.
Unhinged claims of cannibalism have become a theme in the Trump orbit.
In March 2024, tech billionaire and future Trump White House adviser Elon Musk and other right-wing pundits advanced claims of Haitians and Haitian immigrants as cannibals. Right-wing gadfly Ian Miles Cheong, posted on X about 'cannibal gangs in Haiti who abduct and eat people,' adding: 'Reminder that these people are now illegally entering the US en masse.' Musk also referred to 'cannibal gangs' and amplified warnings about a possible invasion of the U.S. by them. When he was called out for smearing Haitians, Musk responded: 'If wanting to screen immigrants for potential homicidal tendencies and cannibalism makes me 'right wing,' then I would gladly accept such a label!'
Marlene Daut, a Yale University professor of French and African diaspora studies, told NBC at the time that Western powers began spreading baseless tales of cannibalism in Haiti after the country's slaves overthrew French colonizers in 1804. 'It is very disturbing that Elon Musk would repeat these absurdities that do, indeed, have a long history,' she explained.
Later that same year, Trump repeated fictitious stories about Haitian immigrants eating pets in a small city in Ohio. 'In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They are eating the pets of the people that live there,' Trump said during a presidential debate. Musk and Trump's vice presidential pick, JD Vance, also advanced the misinformation.
The QAnon conspiracy movement of Trump's first term, which cast the president as a savior, also rested on outlandish theories of people-eating. In the QAnon view, Democratic politicians and celebrities — from Hillary Clinton to Oprah Winfrey — were Satan-worshipping, pedophile cannibals. 'Well, I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,' Trump said of QAnon back in 2020.
The fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter also seems to permanently live in Trump's mind. During his most recent presidential campaign, Trump frequently mentioned the fictional character during rants about immigration at rallies. In his rambling, free-associative style, Trump connected Lecter with the imaginary threat of unspecified Latin American countries emptying their prisons and mental institutions and sending the inmates to the United States.
'People are pouring across the border now, disease-ridden people,' he told a crowd in Erie, Pennsylvania, in July 2023. 'And I said it, I said it over and over: people from mental institutions, from insane asylums. That's like 'Silence of the Lambs' stuff. But they're coming into our country.'
Trump often added more, often confused and confusing, details, appearing to misremember the movie. 'Silence of the Lamb! Has anyone ever seen 'The Silence of the Lambs'? The late, great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner as this poor doctor walked by. I'm about to have a friend for dinner,' Trump rambled last May in Wildwood, New Jersey. 'But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter. We have people that are being released into our country that we don't want in our country.'
In March, now in the White House, Trump continued to invoke Lecter's name, claiming that Lecter was real, or rather that real-life Lecters had crossed the border, or that he had stopped them from crossing the border, or something. 'They used to go crazy when I talked about — when I talk about Hannibal Lecter. The late great Hannibal Lecter, right? The fake news would say, 'Why does he talk about that? He's a fictional character.' He's not. We have many of them that came across the border. He's actually not,' he said, before possibly referring to himself in the third person. 'But when the people went to the voting booth, then we understood why he talked about that because they voted for us. They say, 'We don't want Hannibal Lecter in our country.''
The Intercept could find no independent evidence of the self-cannibalizing immigrant cannibal referenced by Noem.
She has, however, been caught lying in the past. In her 2024 memoir, 'No Going Back,' Noem described instances involving international leaders that were called into question, including meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and canceling a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. After the alleged incidents came under scrutiny, a Noem spokesperson referred to the claims as 'two small errors' that would be 'corrected.' (The book previously came to prominence for her account of her brazen killing of her own puppy, Cricket.)
Earlier this month, Noem was called out for lying about the Secret Service manhandling Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., while she was giving a press conference. 'This man burst into the room, started lunging towards the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice and was stopped. Did not identify himself,' Noem told Fox News, noting that 'nobody knew who he was.' However, video footage clearly shows Padilla identifying himself before Secret Service agents force him out of the room, wrestle him to the ground, and handcuff him. In one of the videos, Padilla could be heard shouting: 'I'm Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary.'
Noem also has a questionable record of financial truth-telling. While serving as governor of South Dakota, Noem received $80,000 from an anonymous donor but later failed to declare it, according to a new report by ProPublica. After becoming head of Homeland Security, she released a detailed accounting of her assets and sources of income from 2023 on but still failed to mention the money. Experts have called this a likely violation of federal ethics requirements.
Trump's lies, for his part, are legion. The Washington Post counted more than 30,000 during his first term in office. The relentless dishonesty has continued during his second term.
In addition to his dehumanizing cannibalism rhetoric, the president also espouses discredited notions of genetic criminality. During last year's presidential campaign, he said 13,000 'murderers' had crossed into the United States through an 'open border.' He said that, for murderers, 'it's in their genes. And we've got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.'
The 'born criminal' theory, pioneered by Italian physician and criminologist Cesare Lombroso in the 1870s, was rooted in racism and cast Africans, Indigenous Americans, Roma, southern Italians, and others as 'primitive' humans 'not of our species but the species of bloodthirsty beasts.' The ideas, which eventually fell out of favor around the world, were embraced in eugenics-obsessed Nazi Germany.
Trump has long espoused the same line of thinking. 'You have good genes, you know that, right?' Trump said during a 2020 campaign rally. 'You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn't it, don't you believe? The racehorse theory,' he said.
The twin fantasies of criminal genetics and lurid cannibal stories, if one makes the mistake of believing them, can lead down some strange paths.
In 2017, the Daily Mirror reported that Trump could be related to Peter Stumpf, a 16th-century cannibal serial killer nicknamed the 'Werewolf of Bedburg.'
Stumpf, a farmer in the city of Bedburg, near Cologne in what is now Germany, was convicted of murdering at least 13 children — including his own son — and two pregnant women before devouring parts of their corpses. He was executed in 1589, reportedly alongside his lover Katharina Trump, who was found guilty of aiding the killer cannibal.
The Stumpf story became infamous in 16th-century England thanks to a popular pamphlet — a precursor of the sensationalist British tabloids, like the Daily Mirror, that mix stories of celebrity affairs with headlines of decapitation threats, stabbings, and horrific accidents.
Kevin Pittle, an anthropologist at Biola University in Southern California, told the Daily Mirror that records were incomplete and inconclusive. 'What I did stumble across, was people working on Donald Trump's genealogy — and there were several Katharinas early on,' he said. 'We're investigating — is it possible that the Katharina Trump named in the werewolf narrative — is it the same Katharina Trump that Donald is descended from? There's no way to support it at the moment,' Pittle admitted. 'But is it entertaining to consider? Yes.'
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump Admin Insider Blows Lid Off Tariffs: ‘It's All Fake'
Trump Admin Insider Blows Lid Off Tariffs: ‘It's All Fake'

Yahoo

time36 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Trump Admin Insider Blows Lid Off Tariffs: ‘It's All Fake'

A source deeply embedded in the Trump administration's ongoing trade talks accused the Republican president of waging a tariff war for TV ratings. '[Donald] Trump knows the most interesting part of his presidency is the tariff conversation,' the White House insider, who chose to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal, told Politico. 'It's all fake. There's no deadline. It's a self-imposed landmark in this theatrical show, and that's where we are.' In April, the MAGA figurehead paused his sweeping 'Liberation Day' tariffs to announce a three-month window for the world to negotiate new trade agreements with the United States—or face the full fury of his levies. In a subsequent interview with Time magazine, Trump claimed to have in principle already 'made all the deals' with more than 200 foreign partners, before later suggesting the real number would likely be closer to just a few dozen. Yet ahead of a self-imposed July 9 deadline, only the UK and China have inked relatively limited arrangements, with less than four days now left to go. As global markets brace for the Wednesday deadline, Trump has lately appeared full of tough talk in his public appearances, telling reporters Friday he'd already signed more than 12 'take it or leave it' letters to various countries reminding them of the levies they'll face if a deal is not soon reached, Reuters reported. On other occasions, Truymp appeared to revel in the uncertainty that his tariff regime has created. 'We can do whatever we want,' he said of the deadline during a White House press conference Tuesday, CNBC reported. 'We could extend it, we could make it shorter. I'd like to make it shorter.' That ambivalence apparently has some of the president's allies questioning just how far he's willing to go to net new trade opportunities for the country. 'You have wins. Take them,' as the White House insider put it to Politico. 'You only have to assume he doesn't want to take them because he likes the game too much.' In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesman Kush Desai said 'the hollowing out of American Main Streets and industries by unfair foreign trade practices is not a theatrical show.' Desai added, 'President Trump pledged to use tariffs to level the playing field and restore American Greatness, and the Administration is committed to delivering on this pledge.'

See flood aftermath at Camp Mystic in Texas
See flood aftermath at Camp Mystic in Texas

CNN

timean hour ago

  • CNN

See flood aftermath at Camp Mystic in Texas

See flood aftermath at Camp Mystic in Texas Authorities are still racing to find victims in central Texas, including 27 people from Camp Mystic, a girls summer camp in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours during torrential rains that triggered flash flooding in parts of the state. CNN's Ed Lavandera reports. 00:57 - Source: CNN Trump signs 'Big Beautiful Bill' President Donald Trump signs a sweeping spending and tax legislation, known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," at the White House. 00:38 - Source: CNN Trump uses antisemitic term at rally President Donald Trump used a term considered antisemitic at a rally on Thursday night while talking about his major domestic policy bill that was approved by Congress hours earlier. 00:49 - Source: CNN Blaze engulfs 4 homes in Los Angeles 130 firefighters responded to a blaze in Los Angeles engulfing four homes and injuring two. Firefighters reported "fireworks active" in the area. The cause of the fire is unknown. 00:30 - Source: CNN CNN goes aboard NYPD boat securing July 4 celebrations CNN goes aboard an NYPD patrol boat tasked with keeping New Yorkers safe during July 4th celebrations. 01:35 - Source: CNN Blaze engulfs 4 homes in Los Angeles 130 firefighters responded to a blaze in Los Angeles engulfing four homes and injuring two. Firefighters reported "fireworks active" in the area. The cause of the fire is unknown. 00:30 - Source: CNN How AI could help male infertility Researchers at Columbia University Fertility Center developed an AI-powered tool that can scan millions of images from a semen sample in under an hour to detect hidden sperm cells that traditional methods might miss. CNN's Jacqueline Howard explains how this could open new possibilities for families looking to have children. 01:41 - Source: CNN Four killed in Chicago shooting Four people were killed and 14 others were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Chicago, police said. At least one suspect opened fire from a dark-colored vehicle on a group standing outside a nightclub, according to CNN affiliate WBBM. 00:26 - Source: CNN Power poles collapse onto cars during dust storm in Las Vegas At least six cars were trapped when power poles fell during a dust storm in Las Vegas. No injuries were reported from the incident. 00:23 - Source: CNN Sean 'Diddy' Combs denied bail as he awaits sentencing Judge Subramanian denied bail for Sean 'Diddy' Combs after a hearing on Wednesday, pending sentencing on his conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. The judge said he denied bail when it wasn't mandatory before the trial and "sees no reason to reach the opposite conclusion now." 01:57 - Source: CNN Bryan Kohberger admits to Idaho student murders Bryan Kohberger answers State District Judge Steven Hippler as he asks Kohberger whether he committed the murders of four Idaho college students in their off-campus home in 2022. CNN's Jean Casarez shares details from inside the courtroom. 01:26 - Source: CNN New activity at Iranian nuclear site New satellite images show Iranian crews closing up craters at the Fordow nuclear enrichment plant, which was struck by US B-2 bombers nearly two weeks ago. CNN takes a closer look. 00:56 - Source: CNN Latino influencers stick by Trump Tony Delgado and Gabriela Berrospi, entrepreneurs and founders of multimedia brand Latino Wall Street, helped rally the Latino vote for President Donald Trump in 2024. As the administration has escalated ICE raids and deportations this year, they visited Washington D.C. and the White House to advocate for their community and immigration reform. 02:27 - Source: CNN Idaho residents line streets to honor slain firefighters Residents of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, lined the highway to honor two firefighters killed in an ambush while responding to a fire. The procession transporting the firefighters from Kootenai Health to Spokane, Washington, drew a large turnout from the community. 00:32 - Source: CNN Severe heatwave hits Europe Heatwaves have pushed temperatures above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) in countries across Europe, including Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy. Firefighters battled a wildfire near Athens late last week, and regions of Portugal were under high alert on Sunday. According to experts, the extreme weather is linked to climate change. 00:57 - Source: CNN Beyoncé's 'flying' car prop tilts midair A technical mishap led to Beyoncé's 'flying' car prop to tilt during a Cowboy Carter concert in Houston, with fans capturing the moment on video. The singer was quickly lowered down and without injury, according to Beyoncé's entertainment and management company. 00:57 - Source: CNN Video shows woman clinging to tree as immigration agents try to detain her A bystander captured on video the moment immigration agents in street clothes chased a woman across the street trying to detain her outside of a Home Depot where she had been selling food in West Los Angeles just moments prior. 02:07 - Source: CNN Key lines from UVA president's resignation letter University of Virginia president James Ryan announced his resignation amid pressure from the US Department of Justice to dismantle the university's diversity, equity and inclusion programs. CNN's Betsy Klein reports. 01:09 - Source: CNN Minnesota lawmaker and husband lie in state at State Capitol Mourners and lawmakers gather to pay tribute to former Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, who were killed in a targeted attack. The couple is joined by the family's golden retriever, Gilbert, who also died after being shot during the attacks. 00:41 - Source: CNN Trump reacts to win at the Supreme Court President Trump thanked conservative Supreme Court justices and explained what he plans to do next after the Court backed his effort to curtail lower court orders that have hampered his agenda for months. 00:46 - Source: CNN

On Eve of Massive Spending Proposal, Resurfacing Presentation from Former Pentagon Advisor Suggests Untapped U.S. Asset Could Quietly Balance the Books
On Eve of Massive Spending Proposal, Resurfacing Presentation from Former Pentagon Advisor Suggests Untapped U.S. Asset Could Quietly Balance the Books

Business Upturn

timean hour ago

  • Business Upturn

On Eve of Massive Spending Proposal, Resurfacing Presentation from Former Pentagon Advisor Suggests Untapped U.S. Asset Could Quietly Balance the Books

Washington, D.C., July 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As President Trump prepares to introduce a sweeping legislative package—described by insiders as a 'Big Beautiful Bill' with trillion-dollar implications—a released presentation by former White House advisor Jim Rickards may offer a surprising counterbalance. According to Rickards, the U.S. already controls a little-known national asset capable of offsetting many of the bill's fiscal demands—without borrowing, taxing, or printing new dollars. 'The nature of this 'trust' as I call it, is such that politicians haven't been able to raid it… which has allowed it to grow untouched… for decades' . 'This is not some kind of government program like those COVID relief checks,' he adds. 'But it is a chance for the average American to become richer than they ever imagined' . A Resource Base Hidden in Plain Sight The presentation points to a vast store of natural resources—buried beneath federally owned land—stretching across the United States. These include copper, lithium, uranium, and other strategic minerals essential to infrastructure, defense, and energy systems. '$516 billion is here in the Salton Sea area of California… $3.1 trillion in Nome, Alaska. And $7.35 trillion in Midland, Texas…' . Rickards notes that these reserves have been known to government agencies for decades, but effectively off-limits due to environmental red tape and political inertia. 'For the past 50 years, fake-experts have strangled us from within the government,' he says. 'They tied us down with reams of regulation' . Trump's Pivot to Domestic Wealth With the introduction of this new bill—which some expect to prioritize military modernization, industrial revitalization, and energy security—Rickards believes the shift toward using domestic assets isn't just philosophical, it's practical. 'Trump is re-opening our mineral-rich Federal Lands. And fast-tracking companies that could recover trillions of dollars' worth of resources, right here in America'. 'There are certain areas where we have great, raw earth… and we're not allowed to use it because of the environment. I'm going to open them up,' Trump said . Decades of Delay. Days from Decision. The presentation references several high-value resource projects that have been stuck in limbo for years: 'Resolution Copper Mine… 29 years' 'Pebble Mine… since 1990' 'Thacker Pass Lithium Mine… since 1978' Now, Rickards says, the clock may finally be ticking in the other direction. 'We know exactly where these minerals are. We know they're worth trillions of dollars. And now—for the first time in half a century—we can go get them' . A New Path Forward? Rickards argues this isn't a question of what to create—but whether we'll finally use what's already ours. 'It's not earmarked for any specific individual,' he clarifies. 'I'm just trying to use terminology that will make the most sense to viewers' . 'We've had this rich endowment right under our feet… yet for years, we refused to touch it' . As Congress prepares for a new budget cycle, the presentation adds fuel to a growing conversation: Can America build the future… with what it already owns? About Jim Rickards Jim Rickards is a former advisor to the CIA, Pentagon, and U.S. Treasury. He played a key role in the Petrodollar Accord in the 1970s, has counseled the U.S. government through major financial and geopolitical events, and is the author of seven New York Times bestselling books. He now serves as a strategic analyst focused on national resilience, resource policy, and economic forecasting. Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with GlobeNewswire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same. Ahmedabad Plane Crash

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store