Kristi Noem, the most effective DHS secretary this country has ever seen, was railroaded out of her position by people like Sen John Kennedy, the DC swamp bumpkin who only looks out for his big corporation donors who love cheap labor.
Kristi Noem understood the assignment. The country is not a jobs program for foreign labor.
She treated mass immigration as an existential threat that required serious enforcement, not endless negotiations with the same business lobby that wants cheap workers regardless of the downstream costs to wages, crime, schools, and cohesion.
The current approach of trying to thread the needle with big business is how you lose slowly.
Appeasing the people who benefit from high immigration levels does not reduce the scale of the problem; it just delays the political reckoning while the numbers keep compounding.
Noem was willing to say the quiet part out loud because she prioritized outcomes over donor comfort.
That’s why she was the most effective DHS secretary the country has ever had.