(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump has chosen South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security, selecting a loyalist once seen as a potential vice presidential candidate for a job that includes securing the US border and carrying out a promised mass deportation.
Noem would join Tom Homan, Trump’s pick for White House “border czar,” and Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner, in the administration after the president-elect takes office Jan. 20. Unlike Homan and Miller, however, Noem’s position requires Senate confirmation.
“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security. She was the first Governor to send National Guard Soldiers to help Texas fight the Biden Border Crisis,” Trump said in a statement on Tuesday. “She will work closely with “Border Czar” Tom Homan to secure the Border, and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries.”
Created following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the department holds diverse responsibilities, including cybersecurity, investigating domestic terrorism threats, responding to natural disasters and enforcing customs laws. DHS also manages the Secret Service, which came under scrutiny this year after it failed to prevent a July shooting that nearly took Trump’s life and led to the resignation of the agency’s director.
Front and center for the 52-year-old Noem, however, will be implementing Trump’s policies on immigration, including his pledge to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants, one of the key elements of the incoming president’s second term agenda.
Any effort to remove millions of migrants from the US faces multiple obstacles, including the basic logistics involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ability to locate and remove those people, legal challenges, funding questions as well as the willingness of other countries — primarily Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — to accept people being sent back.
Some countries, like China, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, haven’t always agreed to receive deportation flights.
In his first term, Trump made progress on but struggled to ultimately deliver on his promises of large-scale removals or completing a wall across the US-Mexico border. In his first term, deportations never surpassed 360,000 a year, below the levels seen under former President Barack Obama.
Trump’s deportation operations are likely to start by targeting the more than 1 million people in the US who have no legal basis to stay in the country, either because they have committed crimes or exhausted their appeals.
The many DHS secretaries — both acting and confirmed — during Trump’s first term included John Kelly, now-prominent critic of the president-elect; Kirstjen Nielsen, who was ousted amid frustration over advancing Trump’s immigration policies; and Chad Wolf.
Dog Shooting
Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, was a lightning-rod for criticism of the administration’s handling of border security and surge in crossings. The Republican-led House in 2024 made him the first cabinet member to be impeached in more than a century.
Like Trump’s other choices so far, Noem is an ardent loyalist to him and the MAGA movement. At one point in the campaign, she was seen as a potential vice presidential candidate, but a controversy over her admission in a book about shooting her own 14-month-old dog drew widespread criticism and ridicule that damaged her candidacy.
Noem nevertheless continued to actively campaign for Trump and spoke at the Republican National Convention where he was officially nominated, days after an assassination attempt.
(Updates with Trump statement announcing the pick, details on Noem)
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