Fallout from Kristi Noem’s time as South Dakota governor has emerged just weeks after she was ousted as Homeland Security secretary following a series of scandals.
Twelve of 19 prisoners released early by Noem during her time as governor have since been charged with new crimes, South Dakota Searchlight reports.
Of those 12, seven have been charged with felonies, most of them drug-related. Other charges include domestic violence and driving under the influence.
Noem, 54, issued 27 commutations during her six-year tenure as governor, according to the outlet. But in a highly unusual move, she reportedly issued 19 commutations without the endorsement of the Board of Pardons and Parole in 2022 and 2023. She also did so without explanation, and has yet to publicly answer questions about the decisions. Noem did, however, briefly address the commutations in her January 2024 State of the State Address.
“Last month, I commuted the sentence of a number of inmates who qualified, giving them parole,” she said at the time. “Now they can begin their supervised transitions back into the community. We will continue to evaluate these second-chance opportunities for those who can prove they deserve them.”
Representatives for Noem, now the Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During her time as Homeland Security secretary, Noem was frequently accused of bypassing established protocols and centralizing power within her own tight-knit group, which included her top aide and rumored lover, Corey Lewandowski. She was accused of putting crucial disaster aid in jeopardy with a controversial directive that mandated her personal sign-off for any expenses of $100,000 or more, and many of her signature policies are now under scrutiny.
Among other things, a $38 billion warehouse-to-detention program that Noem embarked on with Lewandowski is now reportedly under investigation by the DHS inspector general, along with a $220 million ad campaign that used no-bid contracts.
Such probes seem to have followed Noem from her time as South Dakota governor, when she found herself facing an ethics board over allegations she abused her authority to help her daughter get certified as a real estate appraiser and misused state-owned airplanes. She denied the claims, and the board’s final conclusion was kept sealed.
Under her authority, the federal government teamed up with the state of Florida to hastily construct the now-infamous immigration center known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which has been plagued by allegations of human rights abuses.
The center was justified by Noem as a “cost-saving effort”—though it’s reportedly costing the state $1 million a day and facing a potential closure due to the price tag.
Located in the swampy Florida Everglades, “Alligator Alcatraz” also sparked national outrage amid allegations of assaults, groping, and inhumane living conditions.
In December, an Amnesty International report found that guards at the Everglades detention center punished detainees by confining them in what inmates call “the box,” a 2-by-2-foot cage-like structure where their hands and feet are shackled to the ground, leaving them unable to sit or move.
“It’s a copy of Guantánamo,” a Cuban man who was detained there for 11 days told Amnesty International. “The conditions are inhuman.”
Noem also proudly touted mugshots of individuals detained by DHS whom she claimed were the “worst of the worst” on the agency’s website. But in December, a Daily Beast investigation found that more than two dozen of the supposed violent criminals whose mugshots were plastered on the site—under a banner declaring them the “worst criminal aliens arrested”—listed traffic offenses as their only crime.
