A Who’s Who of the Incoming Trump Administration: Kristi Noem

This past November, Trump announced that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem will serve as his administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security. Noem, who has served as governor since 2019, has been an unequivocal supporter of Trump and has consistently championed his hardline anti-immigrant agenda.

During Trump’s first term, Noem backed Trump’s Muslim Ban and his attempts to suspend the refugee resettlement program. She has also supported his mass deportation plans, backed efforts to strip DACA protections from hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, and endorsed dismantling America’s asylum. Embracing the GOP’s narrative that immigration is a crisis and immigrants are invading the country, Noem is focused on ineffective border-only approaches that threaten to upend the nation’s immigration system and place millions of immigrant families at risk.

In her new role, Noem will be working alongside Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s most egregious anti-immigrant policies, including the Muslim ban, family separation, and the push to end DACA. Together, they would form a powerful duo committed to perpetuating and intensifying the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

As Governor, Noem:

• Refused to condemn Trump’s cruel family separation policy, defending the policy as a necessary consequence of border security measures.
• Became the first governor to send her state’s National Guard to the southern border in support of Governor Abbott’s Operation Lone Star and even offered to personally deliver razor wire to Texas. “Our border isn’t just in a crisis — it’s a warzone” (Kristi Noem via X).
• Joined fellow Republican governors in traveling to Texas to back Gov. Abbott’s militarization of land along the Rio Grande.
• Pledged to block immigrants and people resettled under the refugee resettlement program from entering South Dakota.
• Maintained that DACA is “unconstitutional” and supported Trump’s efforts to terminate the program in 2017. Noem backed a lawsuit aiming to block President Biden’s expansion of healthcare access to DACA recipients that would expand coverage to over 100,000 people.

In Congress, Noem:

• Co-sponsored legislation to drastically alter the U.S. refugee program, proposing to decrease annual refugee admissions and amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to cap admissions.
• Supported legislation to increase immigration enforcement by expanding the roles of state and local governments, increasing federal funding for arrests and deportations, and boosting arrest and detention capacity. 
• Backed legislation granting state governors and local governments the power to block refugee resettlement, requiring their explicit approval before refugees could be placed in their state.
• Co-sponsored legislation targeting sanctuary jurisdictions, aiming to cut vital federal funding, and compel states and localities to assist with federal immigration enforcement.
• Received praise from the anti-immigrant group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) for her votes on immigration-related legislation in Congress.