Trump expected to tap Kristi Noem to be Homeland Security secretary

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to soon announce he has chosen South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to be his secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, sources told ABC News on Tuesday.

When news of her potential appointment was first reported by CNN earlier Tuesday, some Republicans expressed concern — but it doesn’t appear it has changed the direction of Trump’s pick, the sources said. The role would require Senate approval.

As Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, among Noem’s biggest roles is expected to be to oversee Trump’s border policies, including the major campaign promise of “mass deportations,” alongside Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan and White House deputy chief of staff on policy Stephen Miller.

Noem has taken a similarly aggressive stance on immigration over the years.

In 2017, while serving as the state’s at-large representative in the U.S. Congress, she supported Trump’s so-called “Muslim travel ban,” saying she shares Trump’s “concerns about our ability to screen refugees — especially those from terrorist hotbed areas.”

In 2021, she opposed Afghan refugees coming into South Dakota amid the U.S. troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though she had accepted Syrian refugees under the Trump administration in 2019. Earlier this year, she spent millions of dollars of the state’s Emergency and Disaster Fund to deploy the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.

After Trump’s victory in the election, Noem expressed excitement over Trump’s immigration plans, praising the president-elect’s deportation and border plans in multiple interviews.

In an interview on NewsNation on Friday, when asked about the potential cost of the mass deportations promised by Trump, Noem said, “It is going to be a big operation, and President Trump has already indicated that he wants to start by making sure that we’re deporting the most dangerous first — those criminals, murderers, rapists, that are threatening safety in our communities — they’re going to be the first ones on the list to go.”

On Thursday, Noem said in an interview on Newsmax that Trump’s “No. 1 priority is going to be this border. We’ve got to secure our country, and we’ve got to get the murderers and terrorists and rapists out of this country, and make America safe again. That’s really what his goal is. And I’m just so proud of him that he’s working so hard at it immediately.”

Noem officially endorsed Trump at a rally in South Dakota in September last year and has been actively campaigning for him since — including holding Trump surrogate events leading up to the critical Iowa caucuses, courting donors at fundraisers and serving as one of Trump’s surrogates at the ABC News presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

At one point earlier this election cycle, Noem was among several names floated as possible contenders for Trump’s running mate. She had been open about her desire to join a possible second Trump administration, saying she would join the Trump ticket “in a heartbeat” and saying “I’ll help him however I can,” even as she stressed she loves being South Dakota’s governor.

Earlier this year, she was embroiled in a series of controversies, including drawing scrutiny and a lawsuit over her social media endorsement of a dental work she received from a practice in Texas.

She was also criticized for writing in her new memoir about how she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog “Cricket” after it demonstrated an “aggressive personality, and was forced to admit what she called “errors” in her book including claiming she once met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. That description was removed from the book, according to the publisher.

Still, Trump defended and praised her amid controversies last year, saying she’s gone through “rough” days but that he likes her “a lot.”