Trump picks Kristi Noem to lead Homeland Security, CNN – BNN Bloomberg reports

On November 12, 2024By Littum

(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump is tapping South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security, CNN said, choosing a loyalist once seen as a potential vice presidential candidate for a job that includes securing the U.S. border and carrying out a promised mass deportation.

Noem will 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 on Jan. 20, CNN said, citing two people who familiar with the decision, who it is. did not identify himself. However, unlike Homan and Miller, Noem’s position requires Senate confirmation.

The department was created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and has various responsibilities, including cyber security, investigating domestic terrorist 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 shooting in July 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 promise 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 United States faces several obstacles, including the basic logistics involving the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to locate and remove these people, legal challenges, funding issues, as well as the willingness of other countries — primarily Mexico, Guatemala , El Salvador and Honduras – to accept people being sent back.

Some countries, such as China, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, have not always agreed to receive deportation flights.

Read: Trump chooses former immigration chief Homan as ‘Border Czar’

In his first term, Trump made progress but ultimately struggled to deliver on his promises of large-scale removal or completion of a wall across the US-Mexico border. During his first term in office, deportations never exceeded 360,000 a year, below the level seen under former President Barack Obama.

Trump’s deportation plans are likely to start by targeting the more than 1 million people in the United States who have no legal basis to remain in the country, either because they have committed crimes or exhausted their appeals.

The many DHS secretaries—both acting and confirmed—in Trump’s first term included John Kelly, now a prominent critic of the president-elect; Kirstjen Nielsen, who was ousted due to frustration with promoting Trump’s immigration policies; and Chad Wolf.

Dog shooting

Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, was a lightning rod for criticism of the administration’s handling of border security and increase in crossings. The Republican-led House in 2024 made him the first cabinet member to be impeached in more than a century.

As Trump’s second pick so far, Noem is a vocal loyalist to Trump and his 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, speaking at the Republican National Convention where he was officially nominated, just days after an assassination attempt.