How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flashpoint
The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.
When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.
The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.
“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.
Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.
“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.
“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”
Political figures in recent decades have largely avoided costly watches to avoid appearing out of touch with everyday Americans. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush wore inexpensive Timex watches, while Barack Obama frequently trumpeted his $595 Shinola and visited the American brand’s Detroit showroom.
When Joe Biden wore a Rolex Datejust, a gift from his wife worth roughly $7,000, to his inauguration, some conservatives criticized him for his choice of an “elitist” watch.
“Politicians generally shy away from wearing expensive watches like this as it can attract undue and unwanted attention from the public,” said Eric Wind, a Rolex expert who has researched presidential timepieces.
But Noem’s statement piece veers closer to President Donald Trump, whose pricey watch collection includes a Rolex Day-Date, a Patek Philippe Ellipse and a Vacheron Constantin Historiques 1968, all in gold. Trump even has his own licensed watch brand, which includes pieces like the Inauguration Diamond Commander, retailing for $1,199.
Three vintage watch dealers contacted by The Washington Post said Noem’s timepiece, which they identified as either a reference number 116528 or 126508 Daytona, appeared to be made of solid gold and probably cost $40,000 to $60,000.
“For a public servant to be wearing it is quite the statement,” said Alan Bedwell, a vintage watch dealer and the owner of Foundwell in New York, who compared it to a “flag-waving exercise.”
“To be wearing that in El Salvador while visiting a” maximum-security prison, he said, “is kind of like a big F you.”
Noem visited the prison as part of her trip to three Latin American nations to discuss crime, deportation and immigration. The Trump administration has sent scores of Venezuelan migrants to CECOT without judicial hearings, despite a court order to return them to the U.S.
During Noem’s tour, she walked past a containment unit, the prison armory and two crowded cell blocks, where men in a cell packed almost to the ceiling were told to remove their face masks and shirts and stand in the shot, according to a press pool report.
Men in the prison, which can house up to 40,000 inmates, sleep on metal bunks with no mattresses and are not allowed visits from lawyers or family members.
During her visit, Noem turned her back to the bars to record a selfie video. When Noem left, the cell block erupted in indecipherable chants, according to the pool report.
Noem made $241,000 as governor of South Dakota, a position she held until resigning to run the Department of Homeland Security, according to a financial disclosure she filed in January. The disclosure said she received about $180,000 for book advances and that her husband, who owns an insurance company, had a salary of about $1.1 million.
Rolex makes all its watches in Switzerland. Though the watches are often copied for knockoffs, the three experts said they believed Noem’s was real. “I don’t think a convincing fake for this watch even exists,” said vintage watch dealer Mike Nouveau.
Noem’s Rolex, Wind said, has a champagne dial and black registers and could be identified in part by the signature screw-down chronograph pushers, the buttons that start and stop the watch’s timing function, on the watch’s side.
The Daytona is famous in watch circles as an ultra-high-end statement piece. In 2017, a Daytona once owned by movie star Paul Newman sold at auction for more than $17 million.
Noem has been photographed wearing the watch for meetings on Capitol Hill, Oval Office photo opportunities and during a Coast Guard ship-assault demonstration where she fired a rifle.
“How is a public servant able to flaunt these kind of accessories?” Ed Espinoza, former president of the liberal advocacy group Progress Texas, said of Noem’s watch. “This is the kind of things we’re used to seeing in other countries.”
Besides her Rolex, Noem wore a blue Immigration and Customs Enforcement baseball hat, a white shirt and gray drawstring pants. In other photos and videos she’s posted to social media from immigration raids and tours of the southern border, Noem has worn a flak jacket and a cowboy hat.
On X, some said that the criticism was misguided and that Noem was free to display her wealth however she liked. “She’s successful. I’m sure that pissed you nerds off,” said Rob Schmitt, a TV host on the right-wing network Newsmax. Wrote another user: “We are taking back our country in style.”
To other observers, Noem’s watch choice recalled first lady Melania Trump’s decision in 2018 to, before visiting a shelter for migrant children in Texas, wear green jacket emblazoned with the phrase: “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” Trump said in her recent memoir that the statement was directed at the media.
El Salvador is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, according to the World Bank, with a per-person income of about 6 percent of the U.S. average – less than $5,000 in 2023.
Under President Nayib Bukele, whose hard-line anti-gang policies have sparked mass arrests, Salvadoran prisons have been criticized by Human Rights Watch as having extreme overcrowding and “inhumane conditions.”
The human rights group said last month that Salvadoran government officials had allowed journalists and social media influencers to visit the prison only under highly controlled circumstances. Noem’s video post from the prison has been viewed on X more than 4 million times.
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Andrew Van Dam contributed to this report.
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