A look at Kristi Noem’s wild ride at the DHS and how she changed the coast guard forever

Kristi Noem began diverting Coast Guard resources to deportations just nine days after being appointed DHS Secretary. It started when Noem ordered a vessel searching for a 23-year-old servicemember who fell off his ship in the Pacific Ocean. Just hours into the search, Noem ordered the aircraft patrolling the area to leave its mission in order to fly migrants out of California. These are the priorities of DHS under Donald Trump.

Luckily, Coast Guard commandant at the time, Admiral Kevin Lunday, managed to pull together other aircraft to service Noem’s wishes, allowing the C-130 already over the Pacific to continue scanning for the missing servicemember. This incident happened on February 4, 2025, and more than a year later, Noem is still trying the same games.  

Under Kristi Noem’s orders, Coast Guard planes are being used for ten times as many deportations as they were under Joe Biden’s administration. The dedication to deportations is bleeding the Coast Guard dry of resources, hamstringing the organization’s effectiveness. Kristi Noem made the order clear in Sacramento, ordering all C-27 aircraft to focus entirely on migrant transport. What Noem calls ‘Counternarcotics operations’ are now higher on the Coast Guard’s priority list than Search and Rescue missions. Multiple former Coast Guard officials have spoken about how the culture shift the Coast Guard has experienced has negatively affected the longtime Coast Guard servicemembers.

There is also the layer of Kristi Noem’s well-documented temper tantrums and pop-star diva persona. In May 2025, Noem’s advisor Corey Lewandowski threatened to fire another one of Noem’s staffers after they forgot Noem’s heated blanket. The altercation happened aboard a Coast Guard vessel in front of a dozen servicemembers.

A former official told NBC News that when Noem was around, there was an atmosphere of ‘keep your head down, or else. After a story was released about Noem’s reported clash with Coast Guard officials, DHS released a statement refuting the comments. DHS claims that the comments were a politicized attack from the ‘deep state’.

Since Kristi Noem took control of DHS, more than 750 Coast Guard flights have been used to transport migrants as a part of Donald Trump’s Scorched Earth’ approach to immigration. These flights were redirected from normal Coast Guard activity, meaning more than 750 aircraft were diverted from rescue missions, maritime patrols, and other lifesaving operations to instead fly detained immigrants to deportation hubs.

All of this information is available on ICE’s Flight Monitor. Nearly 150 aircraft were diverted in November of 2025. Kristi Noem was appointed DSH Secretary for this exact reason. Trump wanted her to focus every ounce of effort on his mass-deportation campaign. She was confirmed by the Senate with the help of seven Democrats willing to bend the knee to Donald Trump’s fascist regime.

Ironically enough, a handful of the Democrats who helped confirm Noem have since had the gall to criticize her actions as DHS secretary. Two of the Democratic defectors, Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Andy Kim, D-N.J., said in 2025 that they regretted their votes, but Kristi Noem was clear from the moment Trump recommended her what her mission was. Whether Kim and Kaine were still learning English when they cast their vote, or only recently managed to grasp the concept of empathy, their constituents shouldn’t forget how their Senators failed them.

America is fed up with Kristi Noem’s militant force of untrained, violent ICE agents, and American politicians are finally finding the stones to open their mouths. After half a year of poorly trained ICE agents using illegal, unconstitutional force, Americans have started pushing back.

As the face of DHS, Noem was at the forefront of any criticisms against ICE, and while DHS continues to pretend everything is alright, ICE agents are murdering Americans in the streets. After each one of these tragic incidents, Kristi Noem takes to a podium and paints slain Americans as domestic terrorists, without any investigation conducted. Noem slandered Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good on National television, causing Democrats to call for her resignation.

After all that, and since Noem has already deported at least half a million people, and budgeted $200 million in deportation advertisements, and blown nearly half a billion USD on new aircraft for the personal use of DHS officials, she was fired by Trump from her DHS lead position, on march 5th.