President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, is set to go before a Senate committee for a confirmation hearing Friday. But even if she is successful at the hearing and is confirmed, as she is expected to be, her role as homeland security secretary is expected to be more limited in scope than her predecessors’, sources familiar with the Trump transition told NBC News.
If she is confirmed, Noem, the governor of South Dakota, will oversee a workforce of more than 260,000 across a number of agencies, including Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. But on the issue in her purview that is highest-profile and most important to Trump, immigration, she would be taking marching orders from the White House, specifically from incoming border czar Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff for policy, four sources familiar with the transition preparations said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media about transition discussions.
Previous homeland security secretaries have been involved in Cabinet-level discussions about immigration policy and have advised the presidents they served on the realities of carrying out policies on the ground. They have also set the priorities for how to conduct immigration enforcement.
Noem is not considered a key player in planning mass deportations, a major campaign promise of Trump’s, as that is seen largely to be the focus of Homan and Miller, the sources said. She has not been vocal about the issue, nor has she made national media appearances since Trump announced her as his choice to head DHS shortly after he won the White House in November. But if there are policy questions from Congress, she would be the one to answer them.
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In response to a query about Noem’s role in immigration policy, the transition team said in a statement: “President Trump was elected to secure America’s borders. As President Trump’s choice to be DHS Secretary, Governor Noem will ensure that CBP, ICE, and USCIS, critical immigration agencies under her purview, have what’s necessary to protect our borders and keep Americans safe.”
The transition team also noted that the Border Patrol union endorsed Noem in a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which will hold the confirmation hearing. “We are confident that as Secretary, Governor Noem will continue to ensure Border Patrol agents have the resources and manpower that we need to secure our border,” the letter said.
Noem’s spokesperson in the governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and a longtime Noem ally, is involved in hiring for key positions within the new DHS, even though he is not an official part of the DHS transition, three of the sources said. Two of them said that has been frustrating for people within the Trump transition whose jobs are supposed to be hiring for the department. One of the sources called Lewandowski’s role “outsized” and “abnormal,” while another called it “unusual.”
Both said Lewandowski used a Gmail account for people to email him if they wanted jobs in DHS.
A lawyer for Lewandowski said that he is not “handling the hiring process for DHS” and that he has a professional relationship with Noem.
Though Noem’s role in immigration policy might be limited, DHS’ responsibility to secure critical infrastructure, respond to natural disasters, prevent terrorist attacks and protect the president and other dignitaries would ultimately fall to her if she is confirmed.
Critics, including Democrats and Native American tribes in her state, as well as some senators, have argued that as governor of South Dakota, a state far from the U.S. southern border with only 5% of the workforce of DHS, Noem lacks the right experience to run DHS.
Doug Sombke, a South Dakota farmer and president of the South Dakota Farmers Union, who has been a frequent critic of Noem, said she was not qualified to run DHS. “Good God, no, she can’t run the state,” he said.
Noem has come under fire most recently for the state auditor’s denial of an open records request for her government-issued credit card. The auditor told The Dakota Scout newspaper of Sioux Falls that the records could not be released because it could violate her safety. The newspaper has sued to get the records.
Fellow Republicans have also criticized her for spending $13 million in taxpayer money on a shooting range project that the Legislature had rejected.
“The Legislature objected to the spending, and the governor approved it anyway,” Sombke said.
Noem’s backers applaud her tough stance on immigration. She has called for so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE to be punished. And she sent South Dakota National Guard members to the border to address what she has called an immigrant “invasion.”
“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security,” Trump said in a statement in November announcing her as his choice to run DHS. “She will work closely with Border Czar Tom Homan to secure the Border and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries.”
Other issues likely to come up in Noem’s hearing before the Senate committee Friday are her revelation in a recently published memoir that she shot and killed her family dog when she considered it “untrainable.” Another is a 2022 South Dakota state legislative committee’s finding that Noem’s daughter Kassidy Peters received special treatment when she was given her real estate appraisal license. A state agency awarded the license in 2020 despite Peters’ failure to obtain training that was required, the legislative committee found.
The committee noted in its legislative minutes that when Noem’s daughter was initially rejected, she “should have waited the required six months and reapplied.” Instead, she received her license from the agency that answered to the governor.
Noem denied she had ever intervened on her daughter’s behalf, saying in a video at the time, “I never once asked for special treatment for Kassidy.”
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