(WASHINGTON) — Kristi Noem, South Dakota’s firebrand Republican governor, faced questioning Friday at her confirmation hearing to be secretary of homeland security.
Noem, the daughter of a farmer and a former representative from South Dakota, is being questioned before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
In an exchange with Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, Noem said the border is not secure, but it will be soon.
“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,” Noem said during the hearing.
She also told Hawley that, if confirmed, she will shut down the CBP One app. Some migrants have used the app in recent years in order to get screened, schedule appointments and make their case for asylum after entering the country.
“Yes, Senator, if confirmed and I have the opportunity to be Secretary, on day one, CBP One will be shut down,” Noem said Friday. “There’s data and information in there that we will preserve so that we can ensure we know who’s coming into this country and who’s already here that we need to go find.”
Noem first came on the national scene during the pandemic and gained notoriety when she did not shut down businesses and schools in the state — instead keeping it open and even hosting a Fourth of July fireworks show at Mt. Rushmore.
“We didn’t mandate anything,” Noem said at the Republican National Convention last July. “We never ordered a single business or church to close. I never even defined what an essential business was, because I don’t believe that the government has the authority to tell you that your business isn’t essential.”
During her last state budget address in December, Noem touted what she called progress on the state economy, education and public safety.
Noem was one of the Republican governors to send National Guardsmen to the southern border to help the Texas National Guard.
If confirmed, border security will be a main concern as Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would fall under her purview at the Department of Homeland Security.
“I have increased resources to combat the horror of human trafficking,” she said in December. “And when President Trump secures the southern border, we’ll cut off the primary pipeline for human trafficking into our country.”
In an interview on Newsmax shortly after President-elect Trump’s election victory, she said the border would be the “No.1 priority.”
“We’ve got to secure our country, and we’ve got to get the murderers and terrorists and rapists out of this country, and make America safe again. That’s really what his goal is. And I’m just so proud of him that he’s working so hard at it immediately,” she said.
A one-time potential vice-presidential prospect, Noem would oversee 22 agencies with more than 260,000 employees — on issues ranging from the border to federal disaster management to the Secret Service.
Earlier this year, she was embroiled in a series of controversies, including drawing scrutiny and a lawsuit over her social media endorsement of a dental work she received from a practice in Texas.
She was also criticized for writing in her new memoir about how she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog “Cricket” after she said it demonstrated an “aggressive personality, and she was forced to admit what she called “errors” in her book, including claiming she once met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. That description was removed from the book, according to the publisher.
Trump defended and praised her amid the controversies last year, saying she’s gone through “rough” days but that he likes her “a lot.”
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