(Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to serve as the next homeland security secretary, choosing a staunch ally who has little experience on the national security stage.
Noem, once seen as a possible running mate for fellow Republican Trump, is currently serving her second four-year term as governor after a landslide reelection victory in 2022. She rose to national prominence after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 260,000-person U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a sprawling mission that includes border security, countering terrorist threats and cyber security.
“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security. She was the first Governor to send National Guard Soldiers to help Texas fight the Biden Border Crisis, and they were sent a total of eight times,” Trump said in a statement.
He said Noem would work closely with his “border czar,” Tom Homan. In an X post, Noem said she looked forward to working with Homan to “make America SAFE again.”
“With Donald Trump, we will secure the border and restore safety to American communities so families will again have the opportunity to pursue the American Dream,” she said.
Trump focused intensely on border security during his campaign to recapture the White House, sharply criticizing high levels of illegal immigration under Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.Â
Trump, who won decisively against Harris in last week’s election, has vowed mass deportations and other immigration restrictions beginning on his first day in office.
Noem made several trips in recent years to the U.S.-Mexico border, which she called a “war zone” in January.Â
 As governor of South Dakota, which is closer to Canada than Mexico, Noem deployed dozens of National Guard troops to assist the Republican-led state of Texas with border security in recent years, including one controversial deployment in 2021 funded by a Republican billionaire.
Noem faced widespread backlash in April when she wrote in a memoir that she had shot to death an “untrainable” dog that she “hated” on her family farm. Some Trump advisers said they believed Noem’s stock fell in the former president’s eyes after that, at a time when she was a vice presidential contender.
In addition to Trump’s appointment on Monday of Homan, a former top immigration enforcement official, as his administration’s “border czar,” Trump is expected to name Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s first-term immigration agenda, as White House deputy chief of staff for policy.
