By Michelle Hackman

WASHINGTON -- Just days after Kristi Noem took office as President Trump's head of Homeland Security, she accompanied U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on a predawn raid of several neighborhoods in New York City.

"Live this AM from NYC. I'm on it," she posted on Jan. 28 at 4:43 a.m. on X, with a photo of herself sporting an ICE baseball cap and getting into a car.

The problem: The raid was still ongoing when Noem posted about it, undercutting the element of surprise, according to people familiar with the operation.

Noem's handling of that early raid was emblematic of the made-for-TV style she has brought to Homeland Security, an approach that often places her at center stage as the face of the president's push to get tough on illegal border crossers, deport millions and scare more migrants from coming to America.

The administration's strategy is yielding some early successes: Illegal border crossings are at the lowest point in decades. Before Trump took office, crossings had returned to the levels of his first administration, and they have fallen even lower since then.

But Noem's approach is rankling ICE officials, who grumble that her desire for publicity interfered with the operations of the agency she is in charge of running. Though the New York raid went ahead, it resulted in fewer arrests than officials had hoped for, the people familiar with the operation said.

Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security's top spokeswoman, said the raid was near its end when Noem's post went up.

On her first day on the job, Noem held a town-hall meeting to introduce herself to the workforce -- and came onstage to the Trace Atkins song "Hot Mama." She has donned Border Patrol fatigues, toted a gun and posed with airplane controls in the cockpit of a Coast Guard plane. Framed photos of the secretary, including one of her wearing a cowboy hat on horseback with border agents around her and another of her on an ATV, have gone up in different offices around DHS, according to photos seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Under her watch, the department has allotted $200 million to air an ad campaign featuring Noem warning immigrants in the country illegally -- in English -- to "leave now." The ad, which aired on national networks and cable, has cost an estimated $9 million so far, according to data from AdImpact.

And on a recent trip to El Salvador's infamous maximum-security prison where the U.S. has sent alleged Venezuelan gang members, Noem filmed a message against the backdrop of prisoners with shaved heads, stacked on three tall rows of beds behind her.

"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," said McLaughlin. "Criminal aliens are staying out and migrants are turning back before they ever reach our borders."

Inside the department, some view her as more of a chief spokeswoman than a traditional secretary closely guiding the agency's direction, according to current and former Homeland Security officials. That perception is bolstered by her schedule: the frequent travel means she only spends a few hours a week physically at the department's main campus in southeast Washington, D.C., they said, which has irritated many at DHS.

Noem's defenders inside and outside the Trump administration say she has been effective, not just in delivering the message that the president is taking a hard line on immigration, but in helping put it into action.

She has pushed ICE to increase its arrest quotas and deputized agents from across the government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and even the Internal Revenue Service, to assist with arrests. She revoked the temporary status of millions of immigrants who entered the country during the Biden administration, making them deportable. And she has created a registry requiring immigrants to submit their whereabouts to the federal government or face penalties.

"I think it's great, the fact that she's out in the field. She's with the men and women that are serving, she's been down at the border, she's been to El Salvador," said Rep. Michael Guest (R., Miss.), who leads a House subcommittee on border security. "I think we need more people willing to get out of their office, get out from behind their desks, get in the field to see the men and women that are working there and be able to see their needs firsthand."

The Homeland Security post was meant to be a consolation prize of sorts for Noem after President Trump passed over her to be his vice president. The job, leading the nation's immigration-enforcement apparatus, would be at the center of his agenda.

But Noem's practical role is muddied by the presence of other top officials whom Trump has assigned similar portfolios. Trump's top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, personally controls most immigration policies. And the president has also installed Tom Homan, a former acting ICE director, at the White House to direct his promised mass deportation campaign. Homan has himself frequently appeared on television, where he has suggested that he is personally in charge of directing deportation operations.

Those comments have annoyed Noem, according to a person close to her, and people close to Noem and Homan describe tension in the relationship.

McLaughlin, the DHS spokeswoman, denied that the two have been at odds, saying in a statement: "Secretary Noem, Stephen Miller, and Border Czar Homan are working hand-in-glove to achieve the most secure border in American history."

Though deportations have ticked up from Biden levels in recent weeks, they are nowhere close to the pace needed to meet the administration's internal goal of hitting one million a year. Trump has grown increasingly frustrated in private at the slow pace of progress, and advisers around him believe that, without a significant change soon, someone will need to take the blame.

Asked about deportations in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Noem declined to provide specifics. "We're not putting numbers on that, because we don't want to be judged by specific numbers," she said. "Because we have targeted so harshly the worst of the worst. If we're just randomly sweeping up people, those numbers would be much higher."

The distrust has run so deep that, in a shakeup of ICE leadership in February, Noem quickly moved to install 28-year-old Madison Sheahan, who had worked on her re-election campaign as governor in South Dakota, as the acting ICE director without first telling Homan and others at the White House, according to people familiar with the events. Reports of the move led to a public outcry among outside immigration hard-liners close with the administration, who were angered that she had no previous immigration or law-enforcement experience. Sheahan was ultimately installed as the agency's deputy.

Sheahan is part of Noem's tight inner circle, along with Corey Lewandowski, Trump's first campaign manager who is now a close Noem adviser. The two aides accompanied Noem on her first international trip, and the three are on a constant texting chain, according to officials who have witnessed the exchanges.

Noem has grown so distrustful of agency staff that she has started threatening and even administering polygraph tests to people suspected of leaking, including Trump appointees, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Noem has expressed optimism that her approach is working.

"The number-one priority of the president is people's security and safety," she said in the interview. Pointing to an increase in arrests of immigrants in the country illegally under the Trump administration compared with President Joe Biden, she said: "We've already done a mass deportation."

Write to Michelle Hackman at michelle.hackman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

Trace Adkins' last name was misspelled as Atkins in the article "Kristi Noem's Made-for-TV Approach to Homeland Security," at 8 p.m. ET on April 14.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 15, 2025 11:56 ET (15:56 GMT)

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