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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is irritating some Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials with her “made-for-TV” approach to running the department, according to a report.
Noem has been accused by some Department of Homeland Security insiders of jeopardizing an ICE raid in New York City in January after she posted about it on social media while the operation was still ongoing, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“We are doing this right - doing exactly what President @realDonaldTrump promised the American people - making our streets safe. Live this AM from NYC. I’m on it,” Noem wrote on her X account on January 28 at 4:43 a.m., with a photo of herself wearing an ICE baseball cap surrounded by flashing lights.
The post “undercut the element of surprise,” people familiar with the raid told the Journal. The department’s top spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, told the outlet that the raid was almost over when Noem posted about it on social media.
Still, people familiar with the plans claimed it resulted in fewer arrests than planned, according to the outlet.
Noem is at the center of a publicity drive to carry out President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-immigration agenda. Under Noem, the department has allocated $200 million for an ad campaign warning migrants living in the country illegally to “leave now,” and she has posed in front of prisoners in El Salvador’s maximum-security prison and behind the controls of a Coast Guard plane.
Photographs of Noem on horseback donning a cowboy hat have also gone up on display in offices around the department, according to the Journal.
The outlet reports that Noem also hosted a town hall to introduce herself to the department on her first day in the job, where she walked on stage to the song “Hot Mama” by Trace Adkins.
Despite the internal grumblings of some staffers, the strategy to place Noem front and center in the administration’s anti-immigration drive is working, according to the department.
“The world is hearing Secretary Noem’s message loud and clear: The border is at its most secure in American history and border encounters are at record lows,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Criminal aliens are staying out and migrants are turning back before they ever reach our borders.”
Last week, Noem was mocked for posing while pointing her rifle at an officer’s face in a social media video.
In the 20-second video posted to X last Tuesday, Noem stood between two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as she wielded a gun. Social media users flooded the comments section of her clip to warn about the dangers of holding her weapon in that way.
“Here we are with Marco and Brian today. They’re letting me roll with them. We’re going to go out and pick up somebody who I think got charges of human trafficking,” she says in the video. “We earlier had an op that swept up somebody that was wanted for murder. So appreciate the good work that they do every day, and we appreciate them working to make America safe.”
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