But with the job, critics labeled her with slurs, a woman impervious to any remorse over the deaths of two violent protesters against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), part of the DHS, or of the impact on illegal immigrants and their families of being “ripped from their homes” and sent back to nations “they fled in fear.”
In a culture that finds excuses to set murderers and even terrorists free to ruin other peoples’ lives because “they may have changed during their years in prison” or because at age 57 they surely would not sexually assault another child, sending people who contracted with terrorist cartels to enter America illegally to face the consequences of their actions is deemed cruel and unusual punishment.
It’s rewarding the scofflaw and punishing the paying customer. It is the mentality that endorses shoplifting as a good sport everyone should try — with no consequences for getting caught.
The media were ecstatic that President Donald Trump was “forced” to remove Noem from her job at DHS — then despondent that he had the chutzpah to choose her to coordinate his signature hemispheric initiative. In unison, they crowed that “she failed at DHS, she’s a crook, she should be run out of town.”
For starters, Trump’s greater anger is at the politicians, paid protesters, and foreign billionaires who continue funding a smear campaign against ICE — and Noem in particular.
The CBP also increased its seizures of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other narcotics by 8 percent over President Joe Biden’s final year — totaling over 600,000 pounds. Between self-deporting and joint ICE–CBP operations in multiple U.S. cities, the DHS under Noem saw more than 3 million illegal aliens leave the United States — three-quarters of them voluntarily. Included in those numbers were nearly 50,000 “special interest” aliens and thousands of known or suspected terrorists.
The DHS under Noem also began executing a plan for comprehensive border security that includes building modern infrastructure, advanced technology, and increased law enforcement staffing to counter transnational criminal organizations, the same ones the Shield of the Americas is designed to eradicate.
Perhaps closest to her heart was the recovery of 145,000 children the Biden administration had lost track of — many of whom had been sexually or physically abused. Also during her tenure, the Transportation Security Administration detected tens of millions of dollars being flown to foreign locations, ended the no-shoes policy for airport departures, and also ended the Obama-era “Quiet Skies” program he used to spy on Americans.
Currently unpaid Coast Guard personnel seized a record-setting 547,000 pounds of illegal narcotics worth more than $3.9 billion during her tenure, saved over 5,200 lives, and protected more than a billion dollars in property. Noem also oversaw record-setting Coast Guard recruitment — a key to both interdiction of illegal border crossers and enabling the safe movement of billions of tons of cargo — and the projected $5.4 trillion in goods during 2026.
In just the past year, FEMA has responded to 41 major disaster declarations, including the July 4 Texas flood, and also evaluated its grant programs to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. Results include terminating 118 bad contracts, accelerating state-led recovery funding to get money to victims faster, and preventomg up to $1.3 billion in external fraud.
Under Noem, DHS agencies cut through bureaucratic fog to improve their performance for the American people, endured abuse and even violence from paid agitators while removing dangerous criminals from America’s streets. and still managed to upgrade relations with Latin American heads of state.