Senate Confirms Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary 59-34; She Is Sworn In the Same Day and Resigns as South Dakota Governor
On January 25, 2025, in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Senate confirmed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security by a vote of 59 to 34. All 52 Republican senators voted in favor, joined by seven Democratic senators, making her the eighth secretary of the department.
Her nomination had moved quickly: the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held her confirmation hearing on January 17 and advanced the nomination to the full Senate 13 to 2 on January 20. Working on a Saturday, the Senate completed the vote, making Noem the fourth member of the new Cabinet to be confirmed, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Later that day, Noem was sworn in at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and resigned as governor of South Dakota, where Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden succeeded her. Noem had served as South Dakota's governor since 2019 — the state's first female governor — after representing the state as its sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019.
The Department of Homeland Security is the agency at the center of the Trump administration's border security and immigration enforcement agenda, overseeing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Coast Guard, among others. At her confirmation hearing, Noem said securing the border and combating illegal immigration would be her top priorities, and argued that the department's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) should be reduced in scale and realigned.
President Trump had announced on November 12, 2024, that he would nominate Noem for the post. She took office as the new administration spent its first week issuing a series of immigration enforcement actions, placing her department on the front line of carrying them out.
(Source: U.S. Senate)
Source: U.S. Senate
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：国土安全部长 Kristi Noem 官方肖像。（美国国土安全部，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons） / Photo: Official portrait of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
