Milei receives Trump’s Homeland Security czar


President Javier Milei received at noon last Monday in the Casa Rosada the United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, a Republican hardliner close to US President Donald Trump. In a blend of diplomacy, geopolitical hints and calculated silences, the main figures of the national Cabinet attended meeting with a clear focus: to advance with Argentina’s re- entry in a special programme permitting Argentines to enter the United States without a visa, as in the days of Carlos Menem.

While at first sight it looks like a programme to benefit travel, the fine print has a series of requisites implying greater cooperation in the areas of intelligence and immigration controls, in line with the unrestricted alignment with Washington dictated by the libertarian government.

The US official was received last Monday by her Argentine counterpart, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who hosted her tour of the Casa Rosada as a bilingual guide. At noon Noem, who forms part of the hard core of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, held a high-level meeting with the Argentine president, whom she got to know at one of Trump’s conservative events at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

As part of the bilateral agenda, the signature of the letter of intent for Argentina’s re-entry into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) permitting Argentine citizens to enter the United States without a visa for up to 90 days for tourism or business was highlighted. This initiative, implemented in 1996 during the Carlos Menem presidency, was scrapped as fallout from the 2001 economic crisis, given the possibility of Argentines moving stateside in massive numbers by legal means. Confirmation of this agreement would be a vote of confidence by the Washington administration in the programme of the libertarian government, its main ally in the Southern Cone.

The operation began at 10.30am, when Kristi Noem crossed the Salón de los Bustos escorted by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who hosted her speaking directly in English. The US official crossed the Patio de Palmeras before heading to the first floor to sign a Memorandum of Cooperation seeking to deepen the immigration security links.

The document —signed by the Argentine Security Ministry and the US Department of Homeland Security— provides for the creation of a joint working group to identify fugitives and to coordinate the expulsion of Argentines facing active criminal charges.

The central meeting took place in the presidential office. There Milei, who is still awaiting an official meeting with his US counterpart, received Noem accompanied by his ministers Bullrich, Gerardo Werthein (Foreign Relations) and Luis Caputo (Economy) —who avoided appearing in the photos released by the Presidential Office— with various officials of the US delegation, including Corey Lewandowski, Noem’s Cabinet chief, and Heidi Nicole Gómez, the brand-new chargé d’affaires of the US Embassy.

While Noem’s formal posting is the Department of Homeland Security, her political profile is aligned with the Republican tycoon’s conservative core. So much so that when she lost out on the possibility of being his running-mate, Trump picked her to confront one of the pillars of his political programme enshrined in “Agenda 47”: the “biggest campaign of mass deportations in (US) history.”

Known as the “Immigrant Hunter,” Trump has turned her into one of the most visible faces of his conservativism, implementing some of the narrative including grandstanding for the social networks, where she may be seen touring the mega-prison in El Salvador or visiting the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. In her zeal “to make the United States safe again,” Kristi Noem supervises a super-ministry consisting of 22 federal agencies and over 200,000 employees, including the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the country’s main cybersecurity agency.

The former South Dakota governor, who defines herself as a business-minded “farmer,” has made herself known for her “law and order” statements regarding illegal immigrants. During last year’s election campaign, she became mixed up in various controversies, as when she admitted to shooting dead a female goat and Cricket, her 14-month dog because he “was impossible to tame,” trying to make political use of the anecdote to demonstrate that she was capable of doing “unpleasant” things.

“I guess if I were a better politician, I wouldn’t be telling my story here,” she wrote in her autobiography “No going back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” The meetings were followed by a lengthy asado barbecue hosted by Bullrich at Campo de Mayo army base, including folk dances, at which the two security chiefs arrived on horseback.

Meanwhile, the visit unfolded in a context of greater rapprochement between Buenos Aires and Washington. Noem joins the list of visitors from the Cabinet of Trump, who considers Javier Milei “a friend,” as defined by the future ambassador to Argentina, the doctor and businessman of Cuban origin Peter Lamelas. Among them, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose time in

Buenos Aires left behind phrases like the currency swaps with China being “rapacious agreements disguised as aid.” In that context, Alvin Holsey, the Southern Command chief overseeing “Chinese interference” in the region, also passed through Buenos Aires. Also Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., a detractor of the World Health Organisation (WHO), former CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) director William Burns, and Trump campaign strategist Barry Bennett, who also walked the Rosada corridors alongside Santiago Caputo.

The national government explained that signing this agreement represents the first step towards entry into the Visa Waiver Program. According to International Cooperation director Alberto Föhrig in charge of designing these agreements, the programme “will permit 1.2 million Argentines travelling annually to the United States to enter for 90 days without a visa.” Furthermore, he anticipated that “we hope to be able to activate it for the Football World Cup which will be contested in that country in 2026.”

“This is an exception which the US government is granting Argentina in a context where there are a great many controls for the immigration from other countries so this is a super important recognition for the country at a time when the world has very serious security problems,” maintained the official quoted by Noticias Argentinas news agency, adding: “That speaks of how serious the Argentine security system is.”

Regarding the current stage of the process, he explained: “This has already been negotiated for some months with the corresponding caution. It’s a start. What was signed today is a letter of intent as a transit towards a process of ending up ensuring the right security standards for the programme to be put into effect.” In the event of being ratified, the procedure will exempt Argentines from having to present a visa to enter the United States for tourist or business trips of up to 90 days. Citizens are also expected to go through Immigration and Customs before leaving the country at any airport. Nevertheless, the agreement does not imply immediate application since Argentina will be submitted to security evaluations to verify compliance with the strict requisites of the US government.

TIMES/PERFIL


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