WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has named South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security, one of the largest government agencies that will be a key part of his promise to secure the border and mount a massive deportation operation.
Here are five things you should know about Noem:
She’s a rancher
The 52-year-old was born in Watertown, South Dakota and grew up on a ranch and farm outside of town. Her father died at the age of 49 when a grain crate collapsed.
“When Dad died, it was devastating for our whole family,” she said during an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2022. “He was my best friend. He was the person I admired the most, the one I cared about most, what he thought of me, and the one I had planned my whole life just to grow up and work with and with to do business.” ”
She was involved in a number of family businesses before successfully running for the South Dakota House of Representatives in 2006. She won the state House of Representatives seat in 2010 and was elected as the state’s first female governor in 2018. She was re-elected in 2022.
After becoming governor, Noem began working closely with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. She then rose to prominence in conservative circles during the pandemic for defying most government regulations aimed at slowing the spread of infections. Since then, she has become a fixture in Trump’s political world and was at times considered his running mate.
She loves pheasant hunting and hosts the annual Governor’s Hunt. And she is an excellent rider.
The dog story
She was vilified this year over a story she told in her book about the killing of her 14-month-old wire-haired dog named Cricket.
Cricket was Noem’s hunting dog, but he was fierce. Noem took the dog on a hunting trip with older dogs in hopes of calming them down.
It didn’t work, and on the way home, Noem wrote that when she stopped to talk to a family, Cricket got out of Noem’s truck and attacked and killed some of the family’s chickens. Then the dog “spun around to bite me,” she wrote.
“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.” She led Cricket to a gravel pit and killed her.
Critics slammed her while she defended the killing of Cricket as an example of her willingness to make hard decisions.
She talks tough on immigration
Noem was an vital supporter of Trump and supported, among other things, his tough immigration policies.
“President Trump will deport the most dangerous illegal immigrants first – the murderers, rapists and other criminals that Harris and Biden allowed into the country. They don’t belong here and we won’t let them back in,” Noem said in a post on X after Trump was elected.
Noem joined other Republican governors who sent troops to Texas to support Texas’ Operation Lone Star, which aimed to deter migrants.
Noem’s decision drew particularly harsh criticism because she covered most of the operation’s costs with a $1 million donation from a Tennessee billionaire who has often donated to Republicans.
Noem described the U.S. border with Mexico as a “war zone” as she sent the troops there, saying they would be on the front lines stopping drug smugglers and human traffickers. But the Guard’s records painted a more nuanced picture of their mission.
Testy relations with tribes
The Oglala Sioux told her in 2019 that she was not welcome on the Pine Ridge Reservation after she pushed for passage of a state law targeting demonstrations like those in neighboring North Dakota that plagued the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
“I hereby inform you that you are not welcome to visit our homelands,” Julian Bear Runner, president of the Oglala Sioux, said in a letter to Noem. He told Noem that if she ignored the order, we would have no choice but to banish you from the reservation.
The governor also clashed with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe over the July 4 fireworks display at Mount Rushmore. The tribe has spoken out against fireworks at a monument it sees as a desecration of land that was violently stolen from them decades ago.
License as a real estate appraiser for the daughter
In 2020, the agency responsible for licensing real estate appraisers in South Dakota rejected Noem’s daughter’s application.
Days later, Noem called the state employee who ran the agency, the woman’s direct supervisor and the state labor secretary to her office to meet with her daughter. Four months later, Noem’s daughter received the certification.
South Dakota lawmakers later unanimously approved a report that found Noem’s daughter received preferential treatment in applying for the license.
An Associated Press report about Noem’s actions surrounding her daughter’s licensing sparked the investigation. The governor said her daughter did not receive preferential treatment.
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Associated Press reporter Stephen Groves contributed to this report.
