Donald Trump has chosen South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), selecting a staunch ally previously seen as a potential vice presidential candidate for a role that includes ensuring US border security and implement promised mass deportation.
Noem will join Tom Homan, Trump’s nominee for “border czar” in the White House, and Stephen Miller, an advocate of a hard line on immigration, after the president-elect takes office on January 20. Unlike Homan and Miller, Noem’s position requires confirmation by the Senate.
“Kristi has been very vocal about Border Security. She was the first governor to send National Guard troops to help Texas combat Biden’s Border Crisis,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday. “She will work closely with ‘border czar,’ Tom Homan, to ensure the security of our American Homeland against our adversaries.”
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Created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, DHS has diverse responsibilities, including cybersecurity, investigating domestic terrorism threats, responding to natural disasters, and enforcing customs laws. The department also runs the Secret Service, which has come under attack this year after failing to prevent an attack in July that nearly cost Trump his life and resulted in the resignation of the agency’s director.
For Noem, 52, a top priority will be implementing Trump’s immigration policies, including a promise to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, a key agenda item for the president-elect’s second term.
Any effort to remove millions of immigrants from the U.S. will face numerous challenges, including logistical issues such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ability to locate and remove these people, legal disputes, funding issues, and the willingness of other countries — notably Mexico, Guatemala , El Salvador and Honduras — in accepting deportees.
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Some countries, such as China, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, have not always agreed to receive deportation flights.
During his first term, Trump made progress but faced difficulties in fulfilling his promises of large-scale deportations and completing a wall on the US-Mexico border. At that time, annual deportations did not exceed 360,000, below the levels seen under former President Barack Obama.
Trump’s deportation operations will likely begin by focusing on more than 1 million people in the U.S. who have no legal basis to remain in the country, either because they have committed crimes or have exhausted legal remedies.
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During Trump’s first term, among the various DHS secretaries — both acting and confirmed — were John Kelly, now a prominent critic of the president-elect; Kirstjen Nielsen, ousted amid frustrations over Trump’s immigration policies; and Chad Wolf.
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Biden’s Secretary of Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, was criticized for his management of border security and the increase in illegal entries. In 2024, the Republican-majority House became the first in more than a century to remove a cabinet member.
Like Trump’s other picks so far, Noem is a loyalist to the MAGA movement. At one point during the campaign, she was seen as a possible vice-presidential candidate, but the revelation in her book about the episode in which she shot her own 14-month-old dog generated criticism and ridicule that harmed her candidacy.
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Still, Noem continued to actively support Trump’s campaign and spoke at the Republican National Convention, where he was officially nominated days after an assassination attempt.
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