WASHINGTON – Donald Trump has selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security, one of the biggest government agencies that will be integral to his vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.
Here are five things to know about Noem:
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She's a rancher
The 52-year-old was born in Watertown, South Dakota, and raised on a ranch and farm outside the city. Her father died in a grain-bin collapse at the age of 49.
“When Dad passed away it was devastating for our entire family,” she said during a 2022 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. "He was my best friend. He was the person I admired the most, the one that I cared the most what he thought of me and had planned my entire life just to grow up and to work with him and be in business with him."
She was involved in a number of family businesses before successfully running for the South Dakota House of Representatives in 2006. In 2010, she won the state’s at-large House seat, and in 2018, she was elected the state's first female governor. She was reelected in 2022.
After becoming governor, Noem started working closely with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. Then, during the pandemic, she rose to prominence in conservative circles for resisting most government regulations to slow the spread of infections. She has since become a regular presence in Trump’s political world and at one point was considered to be his running mate.
She enjoys pheasant hunting and hosts the yearly governor's hunt. And she's an excellent horseback rider.
The dog story
She was vilified this year for a story she told in her book about killing her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer named Cricket.
Cricket was Noem's hunting dog but was rambunctious. Noem took the dog with her on a hunting trip with older dogs in hopes of calming her down.
It didn't work and then 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 “whipped 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 lambasted her while she defended the killing of Cricket as an example of her willingness to make hard choices.
She talks tough on immigration
Noem has been a key Trump supporter, including backing his tough immigration talk.
“President Trump will deport the most dangerous illegal aliens first — the murderers, rapists, and other criminals that Harris and Biden let into the country. They do not belong here, and we will not 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 assist Texas’ Operation Lone Star, which sought to discourage migrants.
Noem’s decision was met with particularly harsh criticism because she covered most of the deployment cost 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” when she sent the troops there, saying they’d be on the front lines of stopping drug smugglers and human traffickers. But records from the Guard 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 led efforts to pass a state law targeting demonstrations such as those in neighboring North Dakota that plagued the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
“I am hereby notifying you that you are not welcome to visit our homelands,” Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner said in a letter to Noem. He told Noem that if she ignored the directive “we will have no choice but to banish you” from the reservation.
The governor also has clashed with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe over Fourth of July fireworks displays at Mount Rushmore. The tribe has opposed the fireworks displays at a monument they view as a desecration of land violently stolen from them decades ago.
Daughter's real estate appraiser license
In 2020, the South Dakota agency responsible for licensing real estate appraisers denied Noem's daughter’s application.
Days later, Noem summoned the state employee who ran the agency, the woman’s direct supervisor and the state labor secretary to her office for a meeting with her daughter. Four months later, Noem's daughter got the certification.
South Dakota lawmakers later unanimously approved a report finding that Noem’s daughter got preferential treatment while applying for the license.
An Associated Press report on Noem’s actions surrounding her daughter’s licensure sparked the investigation. The governor has said her daughter did not get preferential treatment.
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Associated Press reporter Stephen Groves contributed to this report.