Kristi Noem is using Coast Guard aircraft for migrant deportations irking branch’s top brass: report

‘There is a general atmosphere of ‘keep your head down; you don’t want to be on the firing line,’” one office told NBC News

Relations have deteriorated between Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the U.S. Coast Guard’s top brass, driven largely by her insistence on emphasizing deportations above other duties, according to a new report.

Tensions first surfaced last February, shortly after the former South Dakota governor was confirmed by the Senate to lead DHS, which oversees the Coast Guard, current and former officials familiar with the matter told NBC News.

On February 4, a 23-year-old servicemember fell off a ship in the Pacific Ocean, triggering a massive search-and-rescue operation. Just hours into the search, Noem was informed that a Coast Guard C-130 aircraft that was due to fly migrants out of California was taking part in the search, according to the report.

Noem ordered Admiral Kevin Lunday — the acting commandant of the Coast Guard — to bring the plane back to the U.S. so it could carry out its deportation flight, officials told the outlet. Coast Guard leadership in San Diego ended up scrambling to find alternative aircraft to fly the migrants, which allowed the C-130 already over the Pacific to continue scanning the seas.

The missing Coast Guardsman was never recovered.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is using Coast Guard aircraft to conduct migrant deportations, irking the branch's top brass, according to a new report (Getty)

A DHS spokesperson told the NBC News that the C-130 “never left the search.” Yet Noem's instruction left Coast Guard leaders with a poor impression of the DHS chief, whom they see as undermining the branch's historic priority of conducting search operations.

“The primary mission was search-and-rescue,” a former Coast Guard official said. “And now the number one stated mission of the Coast Guard is border security, that is a cultural change that the culture hasn’t quite caught up to.”

In recent months, following a series of incidents, Coast Guard leadership has increasingly soured on Noem, even as she retains the backing of many rank-and-file members, NBC News reported.

Under Noem's direction, Coast Guard planes are now being used for migrant deportations at ten times the previous rate, severely taxing the branch’s scarce resources.

“It puts so much stress on the Wing,” a Coast Guard official said, referring to the service’s aviation operation.

Fresh directives for Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento confirm more deportation flights ahead: C-27s must now focus first on migrant transport. And counternarcotics missions now rank as a higher priority than search-and-rescue.

While she has frustrated the branch’s top brass, a number of rank-and-file service members support Noem, the outlet reported (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Tensions have boiled over into full-blown confrontations at times. One day in May, Corey Lewandowski, Noem’s adviser, threatened to fire staff on a Coast Guard aircraft after it departed without Noem’s heated blanket, officials said.

“There is a general atmosphere of ‘keep your head down; you don’t want to be on the firing line,’” a former Coast Guard official told NBC News.

A DHS spokesperson disputed many of the aspects of the outlet’s reporting.

The representative denied that migrant transportation had been prioritized over search-and-rescue, calling this claim "ridiculous."

“The entire premise of your story is incorrect,” the spokesperson added. “And these attacks are nothing more than a politicized deep state effort to undermine President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda and distract from the historic successes that the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard have achieved since he returned to office.”

The recent clashes mentioned in the report, which have largely taken place out of the public eye, are just the latest in a series of controversies dogging Noem.

The DHS chief has come under intense scrutiny amidst the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which resulted in the deaths of two American citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — at the hands of federal agents.

And, last year, critics took aim at Noem's photo op at a prison in El Salvador — accused of human rights abuses — where around 200 Venezuelan migrants had been deported that summer.