Four takeaways from Kristi Noem's confirmation hearing

As secretary of the agency, Noem - currently the governor of South Dakota - would oversee more than 260,000 federal employees and manage a $62bn (£48bn) budget.

The DHS has a huge remit, dealing with a whole host of issues relating to national security, including disaster relief, domestic terrorism, and protecting the president and other dignitaries.

But one theme that Noem returned to throughout her hearing was immigration.

Immigration

In her opening statement to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee on Friday, Noem outlined her vision "to protect" the country.

"We must be vigilant and proactive and innovative to protect the homeland," she told the committee.

"The challenges in front of us are extremely significant, and we must secure our borders against illegal trafficking and immigration."

She vowed to keep Americans "safe and secure" by reforming the "broken and dysfunctional" federal department that oversees immigration-related agencies such as Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Noem promised to end the use of CBP One, a mobile app currently required for US asylum applications.

She also said she would shut down parole processes that currently exist for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals and pledged to restore the "Remain in Mexico" policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, which requires certain migrants to wait in Mexico for their legal hearings in the US.

Noem noted that as governor, she deployed her state's national guard to Texas due to conditions there that she described as a "war zone".

Domestic terrorism

Asked about domestic terrorism attacks, such as the one that occurred in New Orleans on New Year's Day, Noem said intelligence agencies needed to be cooperate more closely together, while also pivoting back to the issue of immigration.

Democratic Senator Gary Peters asker her what she would do to prevent domestic terrorism, noting that the New Orleans attacker was a US citizen.

Noem said domestic terrorism attacks are increasing, and argued that US intelligence agencies have become "siloed" by not co-operating to prevent these attacks.

"We also need to have, to have interaction with the FBI, CIA, to make sure they're working together to stop these types of threats and identify when they're growing among our citizens," she said in quotes cited by Fox News.

Fema and wildfires

The DHS is tasked with overseeing emergency and disaster planning and relief through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).

Asked about recent comments by Trump, in which he threatened to withhold federal relief funds to fire-ravaged California over disagreements with the state's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, Noem declined to say that she would defy the president over issues regarding aid to states.

But she added: "Under my leadership of the Department of Homeland Security, there will be no political bias to how disaster relief is delivered to the American people."

"I will deliver the programmes according to the law and that it will be done with no political bias."

"Every American deserves to be there and have disaster relief, the same as their neighbours," Noem added.

She claimed that some Fema employees are "not showing up" following natural disasters, and said she would create a "blueprint" for how the agency should respond to certain disasters.

Secret Service

Noem also vowed to overhaul the Secret Service, following the summer assassination attempt against Trump that saw a bullet shot by a sniper graze his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania.

"That should never happen again," she said about the attack.

"The Secret Service is in need of dramatic reforms," she added.

Noem said the agency is understaffed and said she plans to refocus it on the core mission of "addressing national security events with the protocols that are necessary and protecting the individuals that they're charged with."

While she was speaking, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr, posted that his father was considering selecting Sean Curran to be Secret Service director.

Mr Curran currently leads Trump's protective detail, and was one of the agents that covered him during the shooting in Butler.

-BBC