WASHINGTON — Kristi Noem is going to the ends of the earth for the staffers at the Department of Homeland Security.
President Trump’s DHS Secretary co-piloted a C-130 surveillance plane on Monday during a visit to US Coast Guard service members stationed in Air Station Kodiak in Alaska.
Noem said the visit was intended to greet and support the service members who serve more than 1,300 miles from the continental US.
“Got the chance to fly a C-130 out of our US Coast Guard base in Kodiak, Alaska. Air Station Kodiak is essential to our mission success for reconnaissance and search & rescue in Alaska and the Arctic,” Noem said in a statement to The Post.
The former South Dakota governor has kicked off her first days in office by traveling the country and speaking to DHS personnel about implementing border security.
In January she went to both the southern border in Del Rio, Texas, and the northern border in Vermont in January.
The Arctic — which the Coast Guard’s Alaska district patrols — has been a special focus of Trump in his second-term foreign policy agenda, with the president threatening to take over Greenland and Canada for national security and economic reasons.
In October, coast guardsmen out of Alaska encountered Russian and Chinese ships conducting a joint patrol, indicating the foreign countries continue to have a presence in the waters near the region.
“This recent activity demonstrates the increased interest in the Arctic by our strategic competitors,” Rear Adm. Megan Dean, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District, said at the time.
“The demand for Coast Guard services across the region continues to grow, requiring continuous investment in our capabilities to meet our strategic competitors’ presence and fulfill our statutory missions across an expanding operational area.”
In addition to patrolling and securing US territorial waters, the Coast Guard, one of the bodies under DHS authority, has been specifically told by the administration to focus on immigration enforcement.
The DHS has called the coast line America’s “third border,” which needs to be protected.
“Immigration enforcement is a core mission for the US Coast Guard. As part of the DHS effort, the Coast Guard operates in the air, throughout our ports, and on the water every day, working to catch smugglers and secure our maritime borders,” the DHS website reads.
