President Donald Trump has nominated South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the vast Department of Homeland Security, according to multiple reports.
The selection complements President Trump's selection of immigration hawks Stephen Miller and Tom Homan for White House oversight positions. They are expected to enforce his pro-American priorities on senior civil servants in many government agencies, including the State Department.
From 2017 to 2019, top members of the Trump administration, in part due to their careers in the establishment in Washington, D.C., quietly stalled immigration reform. But Noem has played little role in immigration policy beyond day-to-day concerns about supplying H-2B visa workers to the agricultural industry.
South Dakota, like many landlocked states, has lost investment and wealth because migration provides a new coastal workforce to coastal investors who are unwilling to invest in faraway landlocked states. are.
For example, Doug Burgum, former governor of North Dakota, started a software business in his home state. After he sold his Great Plains software company to Microsoft in Washington state, Microsoft moved many of its jobs out of state and also transferred many of North Dakota's jobs through the U.S. government-administered H-1B program. This was supplemented with imported Indian visa workers. D.H.S.
Democratic senators don't have the power to block her, but they have an incentive to damage her politically during the Senate confirmation process.
The DHS job also plays to her strengths, as it requires a lot of public-private diplomacy in the U.S., Mexico, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
But she has little experience with DHS' rival sub-agencies, contradictory laws and loophole-filled regulations. This means that her success in this job will depend on the myriad of representatives she elects in the various departments of this giant government agency.
CBS reported on November 12th:
If confirmed, the 52-year-old second-term governor will have one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, controlling a $62 billion discretionary budget (plus $23 billion for disaster response and recovery) and about 260,000 employees. I will take up the position. DHS is the third largest department within the U.S. government, after the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs.
This vast department includes the U.S. Secret Intelligence Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, and Transportation Security Administration. etc. are included.
“We send soldiers because the border is a war zone,” Noem said in 2024, as she sent troops to the difficult border.
