Capitol Hill Republicans are nervously chattering amongst themselves about whether Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem could be the first member of President Donald Trump’s second-term Cabinet headed for the exit.

They’re looking in the wrong direction: They should be focused on whether they’re headed for the exits, too.

The big question facing Republicans in Washington and across the country isn’t who should run DHS, but how they can respond to the obvious questions about how Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents are doing their jobs.

Coming up with an answer that satisfies voters could decide whether November’s midterm elections allows Trump to continue his transformative agenda — or whether a Democratic tidal wave sweeps a generation of leftist radicals into both houses of Congress.

If that happens, it won’t matter who is serving as DHS secretary after November: Whoever it is will be targeted by incoming Democrat radicals for impeachment.

All the arguments Democrats used under Joe Biden against the removal of then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who purposefully avoided doing his job and repeatedly lied to Congress about it, will be cast aside. 

They will hate anyone who actually attempts to enforce this nation’s immigration laws, because they don’t believe these laws, duly passed by Congress and signed by presidents of both parties, should even exist. 

They’re already pushing their predictable attacks on immigration enforcement — highlighting exaggerated sob stories, ignoring the truth about the massive number of very bad people arrested, and framing the whole effort as a fascist assault on “our neighbors.”

Democrats are playing on Americans’ generous sympathies to justify breaking the law and allowing dangerous criminals to run rampant.

They won’t even acknowledge the plain fact that being here illegally is a crime.

Yet the need to enforce those laws is a major reason why the GOP won bigly in 2024.

Tired of four years of Biden’s border chaos, voters seized on Trump’s signature issue of law and order.

Now, though, Republicans are running away from it.

Carping and I-told-you-so’s from weak-kneed senators like Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, Susan Collins and Bill Cassidy is no way to win in November.

Neither are tepid statements from the likes of Ted Budd, James Lankford and Tommy Tuberville.

Even GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune turned milquetoast in response to the questionable shooting of an anti-ICE protester in Minneapolis, calling it “an opportunity to evaluate and to really assess the policies and the procedures and how they’re being implemented and put into practice.”

Of course it is, senator — but maybe you should also note that as tough as the job of law enforcement is, it’s a job that needs doing?

That enforcing immigration law is what the American people explicitly voted for, that it’s what Republicans plan to deliver — and what Democrats want to end?

Noem’s ham-handed response to the death of protester Alex Pretti has no doubt contributed to this narrative disaster.

No matter how many child rapists and convicted murderers ICE arrests, the media writ large will ignore them. 

Meanwhile spineless Capitol Hill Republicans are backing away from the very reason many of them got elected.

Republicans have to find the testicular fortitude to defend what their voters want, and what the law requires, if they are to change direction from here to November.

They must highlight every criminal that uncooperative states like Minnesota won’t hand over, speaking out relentlessly about their crimes and their victims.

They must elevate the families of those hurt by Biden’s illegal immigration explosion.

Without the technology to clone skillful spokespeople like DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, the administration must flood the zone with more voices who can capably defend what the president is doing. 

Republicans must be brave enough to say why: Democrats want an invasion of aliens, criminal and otherwise, into our cities, towns, and streets to juice the populations of blue states like California and New York where homegrown Americans no longer want to live.

Law enforcement is dirty and messy and can always be improved.

It needs to be competent, trustworthy and restrained as it possibly can be.

But the law must be enforced.

It’s why we have a border today.

Because without it, we don’t have a country — we’re just a house that leaves its doors open and invites evil inside to rob us blind.

Donald Trump is president because that isn’t the country Americans want to live in.

Republicans need to recognize it.

They can’t dodge the fake news’ biased questions.

They don’t have to accept the media’s unfair premises, either.

They just have to answer with the truth.

Ben Domenech is editor at large of The Spectator and a Fox News contributor.