Updated at 6:20 p.m.
COVENTRY — Days after she took the helm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Kristi Noem paid a surprise visit to northern Vermont on Thursday.
The unannounced trip came 10 days after a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout during a traffic stop on Interstate 91 in Coventry. Authorities have said that those implicated in the incident have ties to people of interest in separate killings in California and Pennsylvania.
According to Dustin Degree, communications director for Gov. Phil Scott, Noem had been planning to travel to a nearby U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in a visit tied to last week’s shooting.
“The governor’s office has been tracking the secretary’s planned visit to the border station in Derby in light of the recent tragedy, and we are thankful that she took the time to visit with law enforcement officers in our region and highlight the importance of those federal employees here in Vermont,” Degree said.
Noem, whose department oversees the border patrol, was seen touching down at Northeast Kingdom International Airport in Coventry around 2 p.m. Thursday in a plane with U.S. Coast Guard markings. Local, state and federal officials appeared to be awaiting her arrival. She exited the plane on the airport tarmac and entered a car in a nine-vehicle motorcade.
VTDigger later sighted Noem as she and her security detail were leaving the Haskell Free Library and Opera House in Derby Line. The building straddles the U.S.-Canada border and is blocks away from a border crossing at the northern terminus of Interstate 91.
Inside the library, Sylvie Boudreau, the president of Haskell’s board of trustees and a Canadian citizen, said that she and other library staff had had a “very cordial” conversation with Noem about operations at the library.
As a result of the building’s peculiar positioning, Canadian patrons of the library technically walk onto American soil to use the entrance without passing through a border crossing, though they must return immediately to Canada after visiting the library.
“She wanted to come and see it herself,” Boudreau said.
It was not clear who accompanied Noem on her visit to Vermont, though Degree said that neither the governor nor other high-ranking state officials joined her. The trip did not appear to be publicized in advance.
It came on a busy day for the new secretary, who served as governor of South Dakota until last week, when she was sworn in to her new post. Earlier Thursday, according to a post on X, Noem surveyed wreckage on the Potomac River from the fatal collision Wednesday night of a U.S. Army helicopter and a regional passenger jet, killing 67 people.
Requests for comment to the Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.
Paul Heintz contributed reporting.
