Noem Confirmed as DHS Secretary

It’s a massive upgrade from Alejandro Mayorkas to Kristi Noem, and now it’s official: the Senate voted Saturday to confirm Noem as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security by a 59-34 vote. (Occasionally sensible Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., voted for the nominee.) There is now a very real chance that the southern border will be secured and that the government will take a more realistic approach to national security than it ever came close to doing during the long four years of Old Joe Biden’s misrule.

During her confirmation hearings last week, Noem, who has been governor of South Dakota since 2019, declared: “I was the first governor to send National Guard troops to Texas when they were being overwhelmed by an unprecedented border crisis. If confirmed as secretary, I will ensure that our exceptional, extraordinary border patrol agents have all the tools and resources and support they need to carry out their mission effectively."

At a hearing three days before President Trump took office, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked Noem if she thought the border was secure. Hawley was not asking Noem simply to affirm the obvious; he was also indirectly calling attention to the outrageous lie that Mayorkas, Old Joe Biden’s DHS secretary, told back in July 2022. “Look, the border is secure,” Mayorkas claimed even as hordes of illegal migrants were strolling into the country unimpeded. “We are working to make the border more secure. That has been a historic challenge.” 

Noem, by contrast, answered Hawley with the plain truth: "Senator, no, the southern border is not secure today. But in just three days, we will have a new president in this country, President Donald J. Trump. And he will secure our border." And in the week since then, he has already moved decisively to do so, as well as to apprehend and deport the massive numbers of illegal migrants that Old Joe brought into the country. 

Noem also said that she would end the CBP One app and another migrant parole program which the Biden regime used in order to release nearly a million and a half migrants inside the U.S. “Yes, Senator,” she told Hawley, “if confirmed and I have the opportunity to be secretary, on day one CBP One will be shut down.” 

Trump himself stated that Noem would “work closely with ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan to secure the border and will guarantee that our American homeland is secure from our adversaries. I have known Kristi for years and have worked with her on a wide variety of projects. She will be a great part of our mission to make America safe again."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who, like Noem, is from South Dakota, demonstrated that he is not like his predecessor Mitch McConnell, as he came out strongly in favor of Noem’s nomination: “Fixing this crisis and restoring respect for the rule of law is one of President Trump and Republicans’ top priorities,” he said Friday. “And it’s going to require a decisive and committed leader at the Department of Homeland Security. I believe Kristi has everything it takes to undertake this task.”

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Now the crisis at the border is Noem’s to fix. It is virtually certain that she will take firmer and more decisive action than Mayorkas and Old Joe’s alleged border czar Kamala Harris, but that is setting an extremely low bar. After all, they didn’t want the border to be secure at all. They wanted it wide open, with new Democrat voters strolling in every day in large numbers, so as to ensure a Democrat majority for generations to come.

Was it treason? Of course. The definition of treason is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and it is undoubtedly true that the open border gave a great deal of aid and comfort to China, Russia, Iran, and other enemies of the United States. Legalistic hair-splitters will insist that the statutory legal definition of treason was not met, and it’s true: neither Mayorkas nor Biden nor anyone else involved in the opening of the border will ever face treason charges. But that is missing the point, which is not so about the niceties of the law, but about the real crime against the nation that the Biden regime perpetrated. No trial or conviction is needed to state the obvious: they betrayed the American people. We can only hope that Trump, Noem, and border czar Tom Homan can reverse the damage.