According to American media, Donald Trump reportedly took particular offense at the fact that Kristi Noem, during tense parliamentary hearings this week, claimed to have obtained his approval for a $220 million advertising campaign aimed at encouraging immigrants to return to their countries without waiting to be deported. She prominently featured herself, including on horseback in front of the famous Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
“A campaign that caused a stir,” declared Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The country expressed its outrage, she lied to Congress repeatedly, and even the president eventually acknowledged that she was unfit for this role.” After the death on January 24 of a second American citizen killed by a federal officer in Minneapolis, Donald Trump publicly rebuked his immigration enforcement policy chief, Tom Homan, a move seen as possibly disavowing the minister.
In November, after being summoned by a federal judge to explain her decision to override an order to suspend deportations to El Salvador under a 1798 law on “foreign enemies,” the Trump administration admitted that this decision was made by Kristi Noem herself. The minister even visited the Cecot prison shortly after these deportations, posing for cameras during her visit. “LEAVE NOW. If you don’t leave, we will track you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this Salvadoran prison,” she wrote to undocumented immigrants in a social media post accompanied by photos of the prison.
This mother of three, who grew up on a ranch, is considered a pillar of the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement, which gathers the most ardent Trump supporters within the Republican Party. She advocates ultraconservative positions on all divisive issues, from abortion to immigration to firearms, with which she readily associates herself.
