On January 17, 2025, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem attended a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on her nomination for Secretary of Homeland Security on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
The Senate is about to vote on confirming Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, putting the South Dakota governor in charge of a massive agency critical to national security and President Donald Trump’s plan to combat illegal immigration.
Republicans threatened to keep the Senate working over the weekend to confirm the newest members of Trump’s national security team. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was named secretary of state on Friday night, joining Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe . A vote is expected mid-Saturday.
Noem, a Trump ally who is in her second term as governor, received some Democratic support earlier this week after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 13-2 to confirm her. Republicans who already hold the votes needed to confirm her nomination also expressed confidence in her determination to lead border security and immigration enforcement.
“Addressing this crisis and restoring respect for the rule of law is one of the top priorities for President Trump and Republicans,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Friday. “This will require a decisive and committed leader at the Department of Homeland Security. I believe Christie has what it takes to take on this task.”
The secretary of state oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Citizenship and Immigration Services. In addition to these agencies, the department is also responsible for ensuring the safety of air transportation, protecting political dignitaries, and responding to natural disasters.
Trump is planning major changes to how the department operates, including involving the military in immigration enforcement and reshaping the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The plans could put Noem in the spotlight immediately after the new president visits the scene of recent disasters in North Carolina and California on Friday.
During Senate hearings, Democratic senators repeatedly asked Noem whether she would provide disaster aid to states even if Trump asked her not to do so.
Noem avoided saying she would defy the president, but she told lawmakers, “I will implement these plans in accordance with the law and without political bias.”
During the first four years of the Trump administration, six people served as Homeland Security secretaries.
Noem held the state’s lone U.S. House seat for eight years before becoming governor in 2019, rising in the Republican Party through close cooperation with Trump. At one point, she was even considered to be his running mate.
However, her political popularity fell when she published a book last year that chronicled her experience killing hunting dogs and falsely claimed she had met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
If confirmed, she would be responsible for addressing Trump’s pet border security issue. The president’s goal of deporting millions of illegal immigrants could put Noem, who has experience governing rural states and growing up on a farm, in a difficult position. In South Dakota, many immigrants, some of whom do not have permanent legal status in the country, work in labor-intensive jobs producing food and housing.
So far, she has pledged to faithfully carry out the president’s orders and follow his rhetoric about “invading” the U.S.-Mexico border.
Noem joined other Republican governors in sending National Guard troops to Texas to assist with Operation Lone Star, an effort to stem immigration. Her decision was particularly criticized because she accepted a $1 million donation from a Tennessee billionaire to cover some of the deployment costs.
Noem said she chose to send in the National Guard “because of this invasion,” adding that “it’s a war zone.”
