Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s photo-ops are irritating DHS staffers who are complaining that they’re getting in the way of the agency’s operations.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday night on some of the complaints made about Noem, who has been nicknamed ‘ICE Barbie,’ for wearing a full face of makeup and hair extensions while on the job.
Just days after Noem was sworn-in as DHS head, she accompanied Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on a pre-dawn New York City raid.
‘Live this AM from NYC. I’m on it,’ she posted on X on January 28 at 4:43 a.m.
Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, sported an ICE baseball cap while getting in a car.
People familiar with the operation told The Journal that ICE’s operation was ongoing when Noem posted about it on social media, which undercut the element of surprise.
While the New York raid went ahead, fewer arrests were made than officials hoped, sources told The Journal.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin pushed back and said the raid was nearly complete when Noem’s social media post went live.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s photo-ops are irritating DHS staffers who are complaining that they’re getting in the way of the agency’s operations. In January, Noem posted herself in ICE gear before a New York City raid was completed
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (right) dressed up like a firefighter and participated in a firefighting drill with a training helicopter during a tour of U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak in Kodiak, Alaska last month
Noem kicked off her tenure at DHS by holding a town hall event where her walk-on song was Trace Atkins’ Hot Mama.
Since then, photos of Noem have been hung up around the agency.
There’s Noem dressed in a cowboy hat and a Border Patrol jacket riding horseback as she accompanied Border Patrol Del Rio Horse Patrol Unit.
Another photo shows the secretary riding an ATV.
Inside the department, The Journal found, some staffers consider Noem more of a spokesperson than a traditional agency leader.
The perception is heightened by Noem’s nearly constant travel schedule, where D.C.-based staffers only see her a few hours a week.
That has ‘irritated many at DHS,’ The Journal said.
Prior to The Journal’s report, several conservative women were already calling out Noem for playing dress-up on the job.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem (center) was criticized for how she held a gun in this photo-op with ICE officers during a trip earlier this month to Phoenix, Arizona
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem wore full makeup and her hair blown out when she toured a prison in El Salvador in late March
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem (right) sported a cowboy hat and a Border Patrol jacket when she wente for a ride in February with the U.S Border Patrol Del Rio Horse Patrol Unit in Del Rio, Texas
Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly blasted the DHS head last week after Noem held a gun incorrectly in a photo-op with ICE officers during a Phoenix, Arizona raid.
The Megyn Kelly Show host labeled Noem an ’embarrassment’ who needed to stop her ‘ridiculous photo ops.’
‘Just stop trying to glamorize the mission and put yourself in the middle of it as you cosplay ICE agent, which you’re not,’ Kelly said Wednesday. ‘I think they diminish ICE, DHS, CPB, she’s not an agent. She is an administrative policy person appointed by Trump because she was very loyal to him.’
Kelly claimed that Noem ‘looks like I look right now, but she’s out in the field with her gun,’ adding that she needs to ‘stop with the glam.’
‘No one wants you there. First of all, nobody ever wants the extra lady who doesn’t actually belong. They just don’t,’ Kelly said.
Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain, also flamed Noem last week.
‘I don’t think that it is productive to have a full face of hair and makeup and hair extensions – and I used to wear 60 pounds of hair extensions – when you’re doing things like that,’ McCain said on her ‘Meghan McCain’s Happy Hour’ show.
McCain was also specifically critical of Noem pointing her gun at an ICE officer’s head, during the Phoenix photo-op.
‘I’m from Arizona and I’ve been shooting guns since I was a child… she literally could’ve blown that man’s head off, anybody with even a cursory knowledge of gun safety knows that,’ McCain said.
