Lock up your puppies: Trump nominates Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security

Last spring, according to the governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem Although she included a bizarrely detailed account of killing a pet puppy in her memoirs, many agreed that she had avoided being named Donald Trumpis vice president. (Not because Trump is a huge animal lover – he categorically isn't – but because most Americans consider their dogs family and often treat them better than people.) And while she was indeed overlooked for the vice presidential job, apparently that is one News The fact that her puppy (and goat) were killed didn't leave Noem in the dark about the world of Trump. In fact, the former and soon-to-be president has decided to bring her further into the fold, with a top Cabinet position in his second administration.

Numerous news outlets reported Tuesday that Noem has been chosen to be Trump's homeland security secretary, a job that would normally come with big responsibilities but will be turbocharged in Trump's second term should he follow through on his promise to “implement the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” As CNN notes, while Noem “does not represent a border state, he has long held hard-line positions on immigration,” which in this day and age is effectively a requirement for membership in the Republican Party party, and certainly a prerequisite for being a member of Trump's inner circle. In a sign of the seriousness of his plans to force millions of people out of the country, Trump this week also addressed the architect of family separation Stephen Miller to serve as White House deputy chief of staff Tom Homan— who served as Trump's acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from January 2017 to June 2018 — was named “border czar.”

asked last month during an interview with 60 minutes if there was a way to “carry out mass deportations without separating families,” Homan told reporters Cecilia Vega, “Of course there is. Families can be deported together.” Accordingly The New York Times, Miller — who reportedly once scuttled a government deal to fund mental health care for families separated by the Trump administration — has spent the last two years “working on detailed plans for mass deportations.” During an interview with the magazine last year, he revealed that those plans “include restricting legal and illegal immigration in a variety of ways, including arresting undocumented immigrants already in the United States and detaining them in camps.” “before they are expelled from the country.” At a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in the days before the 2024 election, Miller told the crowd: “America is for Americans only.”

As Homeland Security secretary, Noem will oversee a massive agency that oversees everything from FEMA to the Secret Service to ICE to Customs and Border Protection. She has previously called for punishment of “sanctuary cities” that protect undocumented immigrants, and last April she was banned from visiting three separate reservations that make up about 10% of South Dakota's 75,789.6 square miles of land area, according to what she claims that Mexican drug cartels had “become accidental.” “successful in recruiting tribal members into their criminal activities” and that “some tribal leaders…benefit personally from the cartels’ presence.”

Trump called Noem a “great person.” Noem's book not only graphically and detailedly revealed how she killed her family's 14-month-old dog, Cricket, but also included a fictional story about a meeting with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

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