WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Secretary of Homeland Security was removed from her post Thursday and appointed to the newly created position of Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a title that the White House press office described as “a critical new role at the forefront of hemispheric security,” that the outgoing secretary described as “a tremendous honor and an exciting new chapter,” and that the office of the Senate Judiciary Committee described as “we’re sorry, the what?”
The role — which has no defined budget, no staff listing in any federal directory, no office location, no statutory authority, and no entry in the official U.S. government organizational chart that Supposedly News spent forty minutes trying to locate — was announced Thursday morning in a tweet by the president, who described it as “very important” and “something a lot of people have been asking about.”
No record exists of anyone having asked about it.
What Is The Shield Of The Americas
An excellent question. Supposedly News posed it to the White House communications office, which directed us to a fact sheet. The fact sheet described the Shield of the Americas as “a bold new framework for hemispheric security cooperation” and contained the phrase “unprecedented in scope” twice and the phrase “historic” four times without at any point specifying what the framework does, who it involves, what authority it operates under, or how it differs from existing hemispheric security cooperation frameworks that have existed for decades.
We followed up. The communications office said the details were “still being developed.”
We asked when they would be developed.
“Soon,” the spokesperson said, in a tone that conveyed the word “please stop asking.”
Dr. Margaret Liu, a professor of constitutional and administrative law at Yale, reviewed the announced role at Supposedly News’s request. She was quiet for a moment, then said: “This is an envoy position created by tweet, with no Senate confirmation, no statutory basis, and no defined portfolio. In terms of legal weight, it’s roughly equivalent to being appointed Ambassador to Narnia.”
She paused.
“The title is, I’ll give them this, extremely good,” she added.
The Outgoing Secretary’s Situation
The outgoing secretary, who spent her tenure at Homeland Security navigating a series of memorable public moments that her critics catalogued with enthusiasm and her supporters described as “the media being unfair,” has reportedly accepted the new position with what White House insiders describe as “grace” and what her facial expression in the announcement photograph suggests is a more complicated emotional state.
Her replacement — confirmed by presidential announcement with no formal transition period — immediately began the process of being confirmed, a formality that the current Senate is expected to complete with considerable speed, having recently confirmed several individuals whose primary qualifications were described in their confirmation hearings primarily by themselves.
Historical Context
The Shield of the Americas joins a storied tradition of magnificent-sounding government titles with ambiguous mandates. Previous entries in this genre have included various special envoys, czars, coordinators, and directors of initiatives whose longevity has historically been inversely proportional to the grandeur of their names.
The current record, according to a Georgetown political science researcher who tracks these things as what she described as “a morbid hobby,” is held by a 2019 appointee to a domestic resilience coordination role whose title was eleven words long and who lasted four months before the position was quietly dissolved.
The Shield of the Americas role, she noted, is only five words. “So either it’s more serious,” she said, “or they ran out of words.”
The new Envoy’s office could not be reached for comment. Mainly because it does not yet appear to have a phone number. Or an address. Or, technically, walls.
Supposedly News will update this story when the Shield of the Americas is defined. We are not holding our breath, but we are setting a calendar reminder.