Kristi Noem, ICE, and the Gaslighting of Trump Supporters

Kristi Noem, ICE, and the Gaslighting of Trump Supporters
Trump supporters were sold a simple promise: enforce the law, deport dangerous criminals, restore order. Kristi Noem has repeated that frame as the Trump administration’s Homeland Security Secretary, often presenting immigration enforcement as a clean moral divide between “good guys” and “bad guys.” The problem is that the reality of what DHS and ICE are doing does not match the story they are telling their own base.

That mismatch is where gaslighting starts. Gaslighting is not just “spin.” It is the steady insistence that what you are seeing is not happening, or that you should ignore clear contradictions because the people in charge say so.

The clearest example: “We have not deported veterans”
On December 11, 2025, Noem testified at a House hearing and said DHS had not deported U.S. military veterans. Rep. Seth Magaziner immediately confronted her with the case of Sae Joon Park, a U.S. Army veteran who was deported to Korea. Reporting on the hearing describes Noem making the claim and then being challenged in real time with Park’s story. That is not a policy disagreement. It is a flat contradiction of a verifiable fact.

If you are a Trump supporter who believes in honoring veterans, you should not have to beg the Secretary of Homeland Security to acknowledge that a deported veteran exists. Yet that is exactly what played out. The government line was “it did not happen,” and then evidence was presented that it did.

This is gaslighting because it demands loyalty to the narrative over loyalty to truth. It also signals something worse: if DHS leadership will deny a high profile case in a televised hearing, what do you think happens in low profile cases where there is no camera and no member of Congress pushing back?

“Criminals only” messaging while widening the target zone
At the same time DHS has pushed a law and order story, the administration removed guardrails that were designed to keep enforcement away from sensitive places. On January 20, 2025, DHS rescinded the Biden era “protected areas” guidance that had limited immigration enforcement actions in or near locations like schools, hospitals and places of worship. DHS and allied messaging framed this as common sense and warned that “criminals” should not be able to “hide” in schools and churches.

Here is the trick. A rule change that allows enforcement in or near churches, schools and hospitals does not only affect “criminals.” It affects everyone who needs to go to church, take a child to school, or see a doctor. It creates fear in ordinary life and it pressures entire communities, including people with legal status, mixed status families and even U.S. citizens who live in those communities.

When leaders sell this change as simply “catching criminals,” they are asking supporters to accept a comforting label that does not match the consequences. That is gaslighting through euphemism.

The “self deportation” campaign is sold as strength
DHS has also launched a major “self deportation” push using the CBP Home app, including nationwide ads announced by DHS and additional public messaging about voluntary departure programs. USCIS has also promoted “Project Homecoming” as a self deportation pathway using the CBP Home app.

There is nothing inherently wrong with encouraging voluntary departure if it is truly voluntary, lawful and transparent. The issue is how it is framed to the public. Supporters are encouraged to view this as a powerful enforcement victory, as if the government is removing people through classic deportation operations, when much of the effort is persuasion and pressure.

A Migration Policy Institute analysis has discussed how the administration’s “self deportation” approach works, including policy moves and messaging that try to incentivize departures. That is important because it highlights what is really happening: a strategy built as much on optics and coercive pressure as on targeted law enforcement.

If you are told “we are restoring order by removing dangerous people,” but the system’s big lever is an app and ad campaign to drive departures, you are being sold a picture that is cleaner and tougher than the underlying mechanism.

Money for the show: ICE gets its own fleet
Another reality check is cost and scale. Reporting in December 2025 described DHS signing a contract worth nearly $140 million to purchase six Boeing 737 aircraft for deportations so the agency can operate its own fleet. That is a major institutional step. It signals that deportation logistics are being built into a more permanent, owned capability, not a temporary surge.

Supporters are told this is simply the government doing what it should have done long ago. Maybe. But conservatives used to worry about permanent federal capacity being built in ways that are hard to unwind and easy to misuse. A dedicated deportation fleet is not just enforcement. It is a structural bet on ongoing mass removals, year after year.

What the gaslighting does to Trump supporters
This is the part that matters. The point is not to win a partisan argument. The point is to call out how Trump supporters are being handled.

When Noem denies something that can be verified, supporters are trained to distrust evidence and to treat loyalty as the highest virtue. When DHS widens enforcement zones while insisting it is just about “criminals,” supporters are encouraged to dismiss obvious collateral damage as fake news. When voluntary departure programs are framed as tough enforcement, supporters are nudged to applaud optics instead of demanding clean data.

That is not respect. That is manipulation!

Consequences that are predictable and already visible

• Veterans get treated as disposable. The Park case shows what “we support the troops” looks like when it collides with a rigid enforcement posture and political messaging.
• Kids and families feel the fear. Removing protected areas guidance pushes enforcement into spaces where families live normal life, including schools, churches and healthcare settings.
  
• Trust in institutions erodes further. When leadership statements collapse under basic scrutiny, people stop trusting testimony, agencies, courts and eventually each other.
  
• Taxpayers fund permanent capacity. Building an owned fleet and expanding infrastructure turns what could be a bounded enforcement policy into a long term machine.
  
• Law and order becomes a brand, not a principle. Traditional law and order includes restraint, truthfulness and due process. Messaging that denies reality corrodes the very idea. The standard Trump supporters should demand.
  
  If you support enforcement, demand it be honest.
  Demand clear statements that match facts. Demand policies that are narrow, targeted and accountable. Demand that leadership stop using “criminals” as a blanket label to justify everything. Demand that the government respect veterans, respect citizens and respect the difference between enforcement and spectacle.

Trump supporters are not children. They do not need bedtime stories. They need the truth, even when it is messy, and especially when it is coming from their own side.

 
Footnotes
- People.com, “Kristi Noem Testifies DHS Hasn't Deported Any Veterans. Seconds Later, a Kicked-Out War Hero Calls into the Hearing” (Dec 11, 2025). (People.com)
- CBS News, “Noem confronted by House Democrats, including about allegedly removing veterans from U.S.” (Dec 11, 2025). (CBS News)
NAFSA, “DHS Rescinds Biden ‘Protected Areas’ Enforcement Policy” (Feb 10, 2025). (NAFSA)
- DHS news release, “Statement from a DHS Spokesperson on Directives Expanding Law Enforcement and Ending Abuse” (Jan 21, 2025). (Department of Homeland Security)
- Holland & Knight, “Rescission of the DHS Protected Areas Policy: Implications” (Jan 28, 2025). (Holland & Knight)
- The Journalist’s Resource, “ICE and hospitals: What the removal of the ‘protected areas’ policy means for hospitals” (May 21, 2025). (The Journalist's Resource)
- DHS news release, “DHS Releases New Nationwide Ads to Encourage Self-Deportation” (Jul 29, 2025). (Department of Homeland Security)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “CBP Home Mobile Application” (Jun 10, 2025). (Customs and Border Protection)
- USCIS, “Project Homecoming” (Jul 9, 2025). (USCIS)
- Migration Policy Institute, “Can the Trump Administration’s ‘Self-Deportation’…” (Jun 18, 2025). (migrationpolicy.org)
- Washington Post, “DHS inks contract to create its own fleet of 737 jets for deportations” (Dec 10, 2025). (washingtonpost.com)