Senate confirms Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, a key role as Trump vows immigration crackdown
CNN
The Senate voted on Saturday morning to confirm Kristi Noem as President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, installing a long-time Trump ally at the helm of an agency poised to play a central role in the president’s promised immigration crackdown.
The Senate voted on Saturday morning to confirm Kristi Noem as President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, installing a longtime Trump ally at the helm of an agency poised to play a central role in the president’s promised immigration crackdown. The vote was bipartisan, 59-34. Noem has served as governor of South Dakota since 2019 and is a former state legislator and four-term congresswoman. She will now be tasked with leading the Department of Homeland Security, a sprawling agency that oversees everything from US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the US Secret Service. “The mission and the success of DHS is more critical than ever,” Noem told senators during her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. “We must secure our borders against illegal trafficking and immigration. We must safeguard our critical infrastructure to make sure that we’re protected against cyberattacks, respond to natural disasters, and also terrorism.” Calling border security a “top priority,” Noem said that Trump was elected with “a clear mandate” mandate on immigration. “Getting criminal aliens off of our streets and out of the country will help American communities be safer again,” she said. Trump began his second term in office by taking a series of sweeping immigration executive actions that included declaring a national emergency at the US southern border and kicking off the process to end birthright citizenship, a move that prompted almost immediate legal challenge.
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The Senate voted on Saturday morning to confirm Kristi Noem as President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, installing a long-time Trump ally at the helm of an agency poised to play a central role in the president’s promised immigration crackdown.
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