Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem addressed her staff on Tuesday in a televised speech just hours after she was seen on the ground at an early morning deportation raid in New York City.
“Your mission is big and it’s vast. And I know that you approach it with a seriousness of which the day and age in which we live in requires. So just know that I am committed to fulfilling our mission with you,” Noem said.
Noem told her staff she will “challenge” them to “think what people might need before they actually need it,” and claimed “jurisdiction over everything” involving anyone in the country and all activities and business conducted on the internet.
“Virtually, I tell people we have jurisdiction over everything,” she said.
Noem also revealed that she asked President Donald Trump to allow her to lead DHS, admitting that she wanted the job because it’s the president’s “number one priority.”
Trump has long made immigration the centerpiece of his agenda, starting with his 2015 presidential campaign announcement when he first proposed building a border wall to curb illegal immigration.
Fast forward 10 years later and the president is set to sign the Laken Riley Act, a bill to give DHS the power to detain illegal immigrants with criminal histories. It will be his first official piece of passed legislation enacted in his second term.
The Laken Riley is named after the 22-year-old Augusta University student who was murdered by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant last year while she was out for a jog in Athens, Georgia.
Since Trump took office last week, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department (ICE) has been deporting criminal illegal migrants in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Union City, New Jersey. Tuesday morning’s operation was the first seen in New York City under this administration.
Secretary Noem posted photos on X showing her playing an active role in the New York raids, saying that she was “Arresting some criminal aliens this morning in NYC – thank you to the brave officers involved.”
Noem admitted in her Tuesday afternoon address that DHS does “have some challenges” and the world is “a dangerous place.” However, she assured her team that the agency will be “the first line of defense for anybody that’s in the American homeland,” as she intends to use her authority to help push forward Trump’s agenda.
Some world leaders have already tried to buck Trump’s attempts to send deportees back to their home countries. On Sunday, he tangled on X with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, over Petro’s refusal to accept U.S. military flights carrying deported Colombian nationals back into their country.
Trump swiftly threatened to enact immediate 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Colombia and impose visa restrictions on government officials and their families. If Petro hadn’t agreed to Trump’s demands within one week, Trump said he would raise the tariffs to 50 percent.
The Colombian president promptly backed down and agreed to Trump’s requests to accept the military flights.
Founded in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, DHS currently employs over 260,000 government workers across its incorporated agencies such as the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and the Transportation Security Administration.
Secretary Noem officially took the helm of the department on Saturday after the Senate voted 59-34 to approve her confirmation. She previously served as the Governor of South Dakota and the congressional representative for the state’s at-large district.
