The US Senate has confirmed Kristi Noem as the homeland security secretary, putting the South Dakota governor at the helm of a key agency in President Donald Trump’s push to crack down on irregular immigration.
Legislators voted 59-34 on Saturday to confirm Noem, who became the fourth person in the administration to get a greenlight after Pete Hegseth as defence secretary, Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, and John Ratcliffe as spy agency CIA director.
Since 2019, Noem has served as the first female governor of South Dakota and is a four-term congresswoman. She will now head the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration, customs, emergency management, and the security service.
“We must secure our borders against illegal trafficking and immigration. We must safeguard our critical infrastructure to make sure that we’re protected against cyberattacks, respond to natural disasters, and also terrorism,” Noem told senators during her confirmation hearing.
“Getting criminal aliens off of our streets and out of the country will help American communities be safer again,” she said.
Noem said her focus will be directed towards “homegrown terrorism”, as well, and promised there will be no “political bias” when managing disaster relief.
A longtime Trump ally, the new secretary takes office amid a series of sweeping immigration executive actions by the president which have so far included declaring a national emergency at the US southern border and kicking off the process to end birthright citizenship.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she rejected mask mandates and social distancing. Trump also previously praised her for sending National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border.
It remains to be seen how her role will work in tandem with the role of “border czar” given to Tom Homan, who has been acting as a point person for discussing Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Homan has been emphasising that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be strengthened in order to be able to carry out raids against undocumented immigrants across the country.
