Trump picks South Dakota governor Kristi Noem for Homeland Security

WASHINGTON – US President-elect Donald Trump is tapping South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), CNN said, 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.

Ms Noem would join Mr Tom Homan, Trump’s pick for White House “border czar”, and Mr Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner, in the administration after Trump takes office on Jan 20, CNN said, citing two people familiar with the decision who it did not identify. Unlike Mr Homan and Mr Miller, however, Ms Noem’s position requires Senate confirmation. 

Created following the Sept 11 terror attacks in 2001, the department holds diverse responsibilities, including cyber security, investigating domestic terrorism threats, responding to natural disasters and enforcing customs laws.

DHS also manages the Secret Service, which came under scrutiny in 2024 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 centre for the 52-year-old Ms 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 hurdles, 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, have not always agreed to receive deportation flights.

In his first term, Trump made progress 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 plans are likely to start by targeting the more than one million people in the United States 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 Mr John Kelly, a now prominent critic of the president-elect; Ms Kirstjen Nielsen, who was ousted amid frustration over advancing Trump’s immigration policies; and Mr Chad Wolf.

Mr 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 picks so far, Ms Noem is a vocal loyalist to Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.

At one point during the campaign, she was seen as a potential vice-presidential candidate, but controversy over her admission in a book about shooting her own 14-month-old dog drew widespread criticism and ridicule that damaged her candidacy. 

Ms 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. BLOOMBERG