President-elect Donald Trump has selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, according to two people familiar with the selection.
“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security,” Trump said in a statement officially announcing the pick later 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,” he added.
Noem has been tapped to take over the agency as two key immigration hardliners — Stephen Miller and Tom Homan — are slated to serve in senior roles, signaling Trump is serious about his promise to crack down on his immigration pledges. With his selection of Noem, Trump is ensuring a loyalist will head an agency he prioritizes and that is key to his domestic agenda.
The department saw an immense amount of turmoil the last time Trump was in office. Then, DHS had five different leaders, only two of whom were Senate-confirmed. The agency has a $60 billion budget and hundreds of thousands of employees.
Noem, who previously was a South Dakota representative, will now be tasked with overseeing a sprawling agency that oversees everything from US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the US Secret Service.
Although Noem does not represent a border state, she has a long history of taking hardline positions on immigration. As a candidate for Congress in 2010, she supported an ultimately unsuccessful attempt by Senate Republicans to thwart an Obama administration lawsuit challenging an Arizona immigration law. She also has called for punishment of Democratic-led “sanctuary cities” that protected undocumented immigrants by not cooperating with federal agencies during Trump’s first term.
As governor, Noem sparred with indigenous tribes in her state, suggesting that tribal leaders were focusing more on benefiting from drug cartels than their children, comments that led to her being banned from some tribal lands. As DHS secretary, Noem would be in charge of a department that is involved in tribal issues.
Longtime Trump loyalist
Since taking office in 2019, Noem has established herself politically as a governor in Trump’s style and has long sought to curry favor with the president-elect. She was a vociferous opponent of Covid-19 safety measures such as enforced masking and business and church closures, and once said at a National Rifle Association event that her 2-year-old grandchild has multiple guns. In 2020, The New York Times reported that Noem once presented Trump with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that added his face to the pantheon of American presidents and she was one of the earliest governors to endorse him ahead of his 2024 run for president.
Trump, in turn, has called Noem a “terrific person,” and she was once considered a top potential running mate as he geared up for his 2024 run. But she eventually fell off the shortlist, and then suffered an embarrassing political episode following the publication of her book: “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” In it, she revealed that she once killed her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, Cricket, when she was not displaying the signs of an ideal hunting dog.
The governor wrote that the dog was “untrainable,” according to excerpts first reported by The Guardian. Noem later argued that those anecdotes were meant to show how capable she is of doing some of the more gruesome jobs in life when necessary.
Still, Noem has remained a staunch ally of Trump’s. In the closing weeks of the 2024 campaign, The Atlantic reported that Noem participated in a strategy briefing with Trump, questioning findings by campaign officials about the state of the race. And she moderated a memorable town hall in October when Trump swayed to music for more than 30 minutes.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Michelle Shen contributed to this report.