Trump Taps South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as New Homeland Security Secretary: Report

President Donald Trump has reportedly chosen South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to sources familiar with the decision reported by CNN.

While Trump has not officially announced his choice, the reported move is widely viewed as part of his commitment to strict immigration enforcement.

Noem’s appointment comes as Trump names immigration hardliners Stephen Miller and former ICE director Tom Homan to senior advisory roles.

Stephen Miller has reportedly been selected to serve as White House Deputy Chief of Staff, with an advisory role on immigration plans. At the same time, Tom Homan has already been announced as the new “Border Czar.”

Both are known for their uncompromising views on immigration enforcement, reinforcing the administration’s pledge to address border security with unprecedented vigor.

CNN reported:

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.

Noem had once been on Trump’s shortlist for vice president, though her relationship with Trump shifted after the negative rollout surrounding 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.

If officially confirmed, Noem will replace Alejandro Mayorkas, under whose tenure U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported nearly 3 million inadmissible encounters, totaling approximately 10.8 million since Fiscal Year 2021.

According to the report from the Deputy Director of ICE Patrick Lechleitner sent to Congressman Tony Gonzalez, over 662,000 illegal immigrants with criminal histories are currently on ICE’s national docket.

Even more alarming is that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently tracking over 425,000 illegal immigrants convicted of various crimes, while 226,000 face pending criminal charges, all of whom have been released into the United States under the regime’s lenient immigration enforcement.

Of that staggering number, over 13,000 illegal immigrants have been convicted of homicide, and more than 15,000 have been convicted of sexual assault.

These individuals are not in custody—they are roaming free in communities across the country, thanks to the administration’s so-called “catch and release” policy.

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