According to multiple media reports Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump is set to nominate South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which will carry out Trump’s plan to conduct mass deportations of millions of people in the country without proper legal status.
DHS is the agency primarily responsible for immigration enforcement and border security and handles temporary protections to allow immigrants to live and work in the United States. As Trump rolls out his nominees, Noem would be the first governor to get the nod for the Cabinet.
DHS has about 260,000 federal employees and a nearly $62 billion discretionary budget authority.
The news has already caused a backlash among Democrats.
“With a long history of championing Trump’s draconian immigration policies, Governor Kristi Noem will carry out his cruel plans without a second thought,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement.
Noem, a staunch Trump ally, was one of several Republican governors who sent U.S. National Guard troops to the southern border in Texas, in a rebuke to the Biden administration and its immigration policies. She’s also visited the southern border several times.
Noem served in Congress from 2011 until 2019, when she left after winning her 2018 run for governor. She’s in her second term that is set to expire in 2026.
While in Congress, she served on the U.S. House Armed Services, Ways and Means and Agriculture committees.
Noem did not sit on the committee that provides oversight for DHS, the Homeland Security Committee.
Noem joins border czar
In Trump’s second administration, Noem would join several former Trump officials who were the architects and biggest defenders of his hard-line immigration policies. The three are among Trump’s first staffing announcements.
On Monday, Trump dubbed the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration, Tom Homan, as his “border czar.” Homan backed the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that separated nearly 5,000 migrant families at the southern border.
Stephen Miller, who steered many of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, is set to join the White House as a deputy chief of staff for policy.
Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said in a statement that the appointment of Miller and Homan signals that “mass deportations will be indiscriminate and unsparing.”
“The Stephen Miller and Tom Homan appointments are disturbing, if unsurprising, signals that we should take Donald Trump seriously and literally about his proposed largest deportation operation in American history and the unsparing, indiscriminate, and costly nature of what’s to come,” Cárdenas said.
Noem’s nomination to Trump’s Cabinet would have to go through Senate confirmation, where she could face questions about an anecdote in her memoir. She retracted a story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un after reporters questioned whether the meeting actually happened.
Additionally, in the same memoir, she disclosed that she shot her 14-month-old puppy, named Cricket, because of behavioral issues. The revelation drew intense criticism from both sides of the political aisle.
Vast responsibilities
DHS is a sprawling agency consisting of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Coast Guard, among other national security agencies.
The Secret Service is under intense scrutiny after major shortfalls in its prevention of the first assassination attempt against Trump last summer, where he sustained an injury to his ear. That first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, led to the director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigning.
Ronald L. Rowe, the U.S. Secret Service deputy director, is currently serving as the acting director, and was praised for the agency’s swift action in the second assassination attempt against Trump at his private golf course in Florida.
–Ariana Figuroa, Florida Phoenix
Jackson says
This reflects a sad and potentially dangerous shift taking place not only in our government—both elected officials (those who had to take the GED 4 times before passing) and appointed staff–but also in other sectors (education, e.g., Betsy Voss; corporate sector) where people are placed in jobs for which they lack either formal training, knowledge, or experience (and may have a pre-set biased agenda!).
This rejection of knowledge is yet one factor in our move (backwards) into a second Dark Ages, and something I’ve witnessed first hand in more than one setting.
Placing people who are unqualified for their job has potentially serious ramifications for our country. Add to this those who are truly “unfit” (e.g., character, personality, intelligence, mental or physical health), and now the notion that long-standing government employees (with years of experiential knowledge) will be replaced by “loyalists” (who likely do not have the formal training, knowledge, requisite experience), and this is a recipe for disaster on multiple fronts.
That there are people who have proven their unethical and/or corrupt in the two other branches of our gov’t (Congress, Justice) who may not serve to provide sound, legal, fair / just, Constitutional checks and balances may prove to be the end of United States as it was conceived as a democratic constitutional republic.
Case in point: Mr. Trump is technically disqualified to hold elected office based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Andy Montgomery says
The Big Bang energy force that became trees, dogs, catfish and all pigs has blessed our nation under God with liberty justice and honor for all but those we cancel is happy to give us exactly what our populous has demanded.
As a follower of the way and beat up sheep, I pray my little piece of Paradise is a bastion of the Fruits of the Spirit – Love Joy Peace Patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self control
God Bless America Land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her…
😎
Al says
It never amazes me how idiotic the left can be. There is a new dawn coming in this country and to those whom just want to cry , tough.
So where’s your problem with actually enforcing the law. There is no problem with legal immigration, but the illegals can go to hell. If they’re allowed to break our laws and you’re okay, then throw out all the laws and let’s just have anarchy.
Justbob says
Simply couldn’t be a worse choice. A female Elmer Fudd. But hey, that’s Donald for you.
Pogo says
@UPDATE
The DOD will be led by this handsome Fox News pool boy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth
Another average Joe who attended Princeton, and Harvard Graduate School — and is on a third marriage, with his seed having sprouted seven times, just like big daddy trump.
doG Bless America!!!
Al says
How did we not recognize your superior intelligence. I’ll match my 3.9 GPA in engineering to your 2.6 in humanities, or was it political science. I for one along with a large number of my fellow Americans are tired of academics that live in a bubble of liberalism. If you’ve never written paychecks out of your own account or commanded a force in the field then you have little credibility except in your own mind.
JOSEPH HEMPFLING says
WHAT HAPPEN TO THE “BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST” OR IS IT ONLY A BOOK TITLE NEW ?
AND GOD HELP AMERICA AND ALSO BLESS IT, AS IT KNOWS N O T WHAT IT DOES, EXCEPT
NOW SELF DESTRUCT. THE LIGHT AT THE TOP OF THE HILL IS FADING IF NOT GOING OUT !!
Al says
Is Austin your guy? A general so overweight (fat ) that he couldn’t fit behind a normal desk. By the way he didn’t get promoted because they need a DEI appointment throughout his career. He has proven his incompetence over and over. I would’ve gone AWOL rather than serve under that jerk.
My daughter a Col. with 23 years of service in war zones and flight testing numerous aircraft left when he was put in charge. My son in law also a Col with 27 years also left. Who would follow Austin in a snowball fight?
can'tfoolme says
Is not that exactly what the racial diversity movement did…..hiring to make the statistics look good rather than on a person’s ability or knowledge to assume the position? I see the comparison you are making. This is nothing new or worse than what has been done in the past. And didn’t past administrations appoint whoever they desired to work with them (a Presidential right, by the way).
Sherry says
@ OK al. . . let’s enforce the law. . . that would include having trump in jail for being an already “Convicted Felon”, right? Let’s also proceed with the other cases where trump has been “Indicted” for stealing classified documents, inciting an insurrection, and trying to overturn the last election, right?
Sherry says
@ OK al. . . let’s enforce the law. . . that would include having trump in jail for being an already “Convicted Felon”, right? Let’s also proceed with the other cases where trump has been “Indicted” for stealing classified documents, inciting an insurrection, and trying to overturn the last election, right?
jackson says
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
FlaPharmTech says
AI, Jackson’s comment is seriously, and unfortunately, spot on. Yours, however, is defensive and angry, exactly the typical MAGA stance. Your side won, this time…
Be joyous.
FlaPharmTech says
Apologies, you are A1, as in steak sauce, not AI.
Sherry says
Thank You Jackson!
FlaPharmTech says
Jackson, this entire trump dumpster fire is sad and dangerous. I truly fear for our country. Thank you for your posts and your voice of REASON over the treason of the MAGA inductees and their dear, dangerous leader. I’m still in shock.
FlaPharmTech says
A1 steak sauce, so you’re wishing human beings to go to hell???!!!!
I’m with Sherry. Your dear leader should be in jail.
Joseph Barand says
The wives of Trump, Vance, McConnell and hundreds of othe Republicans should be Deported first.