A new book on the reported chaos and dysfunction within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states how President Donald Trump believed that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s history of shooting her dog made her an asset to his cabinet.
An excerpt of Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program, a forthcoming book by Julia Ainsley of NBC and detailed in The Atlantic, describes how the President saw her killing a dog as a reason to select her to run his mass deportation agenda. An agenda that has so far resulted in the deaths of three U.S. citizens.
Noem’s tale became infamous in 2024 after she released her memoir, where she described shooting her “untrainable” dog, Cricket. She said it was a story of being a “responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbour.”
The former South Dakota governor also admitted in her book to killing a family goat on the same day, and said that she had also previously put down three horses, while stating, “We love animals.”
Despite being widely mocked across the political spectrum, including several times on South Park, Noem is now one of the most powerful people in the Trump administration.
Ainsley’s book is based on extensive research within DHS, where Noem and her closest advisor, Corey Lewandowski, have been empowered to implement the president’s sweeping mass-deportation agenda.
Despite winning the 2024 election on the back of anti-immigration sentiment, 49 percent of Americans now strongly disapprove of how Trump is handling border security and immigration, per NBC polling. The ICE baring the brunt of the public’s anger.
Ainsley’s reporting corroborates previous reports that the DHS is in a state of “constant chaos,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Insiders at DHS told the outlet that Noem is more focused on her personal stardom than her job and has a penchant for staging photoshoots with officials holding guns.
In Ainsley’s book, the author says Lewandowski is also a critical force within DHS, deciding which information gets to Noem’s desk, who is granted a meeting, and even what kind of detention centers to build as their mass deportation force grows.
He and Noem have denied all allegations of a romantic relationship between them, despite insiders telling Ainsley that they “don’t hide it.”
A spokesperson for DHS has said, “This Department doesn’t waste time with salacious, baseless gossip.”
Lewandowski was hired by Noem as a “special government employee,” but has been referring to himself as her “chief advisor” and has now accumulated an “unchecked level of power” within the department, the new book alleges.
The former Trump campaign manager has been pushing for cheaply built facilities and, ideally, in his mind, constructing tent cities for migrants in punishing locations. He was the mind behind “Alligator Alcatraz,” a site in the Florida Everglades where Amnesty International alleges that detainees were shackled to cages and left outside for days on end.
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