Before the 2024 election, the idea that Kristi Noem would someday head the Department of Homeland Security seemed beyond unlikely. But her cruelty once handed this power was foreseeable. If Noem’s name rang any bells for most people before the Senate confirmed her to head DHS this January (to their enduring shame), it was because she shot her 14-month-old dog to death in a gravel pit and included the grisly scene in her election-year memoir. She defended the book, No Going Back, as “a blueprint for America of what citizens can do here to take their country back.” In the past year, she has emerged in what will likely go down in history as her true form: an entity first caught on camera in March 2025 in a torture prison in El Salvador, and now shorthanded as “ICE Barbie.” Heavily made-up, styled in a tight white shirt, $50,000 Rolex watch, and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ball cap atop long, flowing locks, she stood in front of cells filled with men imprisoned on her orders, and delivered a direct-to-camera threat to immigrants in the United States: “This facility,” she said, “is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”

Under Noem, ICE has become the most lavishly-funded law enforcement agency in the United States. ICE agents have arrested around 220,000 people, between Trump taking office and October 15. (That doesn’t include arrests by Border Patrol agents, a separate DHS agency who often accompany ICE; since January 20, the administration has claimed to have arrested 595,000 immigrants.) On any given day, Noem’s DHS is responsible for holding around 65,000 people in immigration detention—a record high. Breaking another record, ICE has detained at least 600 children this year. The agency claimed to have deported more than 600,000 people since Trump returned to office. Noem has overseen the opening and expansion of several new immigrant detention facilities and camps; two Florida facilities notorious for employing torture techniques borrowed........

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