Kristi Noem, the nominee to head Homeland Security under President-elect Donald Trump, said Friday that mass deportations will focus on those with criminal convictions, not displacing agricultural workers in border communities.
Noem, the Republican South Dakota governor, also told Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., during her confirmation hearing that she would look to work respectfully with Native American tribes whose land helps form part of the nation’s southern border.
Gallego wanted an assurance that dairy and agricultural work would not be disrupted by the next administration’s plans for mass deportations. Noem said that area of the country is not the focus.
“President Trump has been very clear that his priority is going to be deporting criminals, those who have broken our laws and (perpetrated) violence in our communities. That will be the priority,” she said. “Having over 425,000 of those with criminal convictions in our country, that will be a focus that we need to tackle right away, and it will be a big one.
“Beyond that, his next priority is going to be those with final removal orders and focus on those individuals who have long overstayed and that there is a consequence for ignoring our federal laws.”
Noem seemed to cite crime figures Trump touted in a Tempe campaign visit last year. The Homeland Security Department said last year that the numbers were “misinterpreted” and included 40 years of data and crimes allegedly perpetrated in other countries. More than 400,000 such individuals were on the agency’s docket three months into President Joe Biden’s term, the agency has said.
During Gallego’s round of questions with Noem, he asked Noem to help depoliticize the Shelter and Services program, which is intended to provide disaster relief funding but has come to include migrant shelter funding in larger cities.
Trump and his allies have pointed to public expenses to accommodate migrants, which they argue are more generous than help for Americans. Gallego said there is a very different use of resources in border communities, such as those in Yuma, Pima and Cochise counties.
“These are very small, small towns on the border, so having thousands of people being released becomes both burdensome security issues and just not fair to them,” Gallego said.
“We get lumped in with places like New York and Chicago about how they do their shelter programs. Our shelter programs are not the same as New York and Chicago. We do not permanently put people in apartments or anything of that nature. We are trying to move people from the border so that they don’t become a burden on these very, very small communities.”
Noem said her hope is that the program “would no longer … facilitate an illegal invasion, and that your communities in Arizona would no longer have the issue with having people in your small towns and communities that you need to figure out how to take care of and get them to where they want to go in other places in the country.”
Noem praised the Shadow Wolves program that uses members of the Tohono O’odham tribe to help interdict human and drug smuggling along their 76 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border.
“The Shadow Wolf training opportunity is incredible that you spoke of,” Noem said to Gallego. “In looking into that program, I’d like to continue to build on that and perpetuate in the future so that our tribes have an opportunity to have a secure border, but also have it reflect their values and their culture and have their own people be a part of the solution.”
Noem cited her own state’s practice of training tribal police officers at South Dakota’s expense as a sign of her experience with working with tribes and facilitating public safety.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kristi Noem says mass deportations will target criminals, not border areas