One Native American tribe has banned South Dakota Kristi Noem from visiting their reservation over remarks she made about the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border.
As reported by RedState yesterday, Noem warned that Mexican drug cartels are using the southern border to enter the U.S. and wreak havoc across the country.
She said in a speech earlier this week:
South Dakota is directly affected by this invasion. We are affected by cartel presence on our tribal reservations; by the spread of drugs and human trafficking throughout our communities; and by the drain on our resources at the local, state, and federal level.
And now, the sheer number of illegal migrants coming into the country has made it so that every state is now a border state. This isn’t just an issue for Texas and other states along the border. This is an issue for every American.
Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out of the Pine Ridge Reservation accused Noem of using the plight of Native Americans to get Donald Trump re-elected.
“Due to the safety of the Oyate, effective immediately, you are hereby Banished from the homelands of the Oglala Sioux Tribe!” the president said in a statement on Friday, according to Politico.
Star Comes Out said he took issue with Noem’s comments because many of those entering the U.S. are indigenous people who are merely “in search of jobs and a better life.”
“They don’t need to be put in cages, separated from their children like during the Trump Administration, or be cut up by razor wire furnished by, of all places, South Dakota,” he remarked.
Noem responded to his remarks in a statement Sunday:
It is unfortunate that President (Star) Comes Out chose to bring politics into a discussion regarding the effects of our federal government’s failure to enforce federal laws at the southern border and on tribal lands. My focus continues to be on working together to solve those problems.
As I told bipartisan Native American legislators earlier this week, ‘I am not the one with a stiff arm, here. You can’t build relationships if you don’t spend time together.’ I stand ready to work with any of our state’s Native American tribes to build such a relationship.
What makes the reaction of Star Comes Out all the stranger is that his reservations are indeed plagued by criminal activity, some of which comes from illegal immigrants who crossed the southern border.
Last November, the tribe even declared a state of emergency over the lack of federal funding to combat skyrocketing crime across the reservation, as the AP reported at the time:
Gun violence, drug offenses and rapes have become increasingly common on the Pine Ridge reservation. Only 33 officers and eight criminal investigators are responsible for more than 100,000 emergency calls each year across the 5,400-square-mile (14,000-square-kilometer) reservation, tribal officials have said.
It, therefore, sounds like Mr. Star Comes Out should focus on getting his priorities in order. Noem, meanwhile, is rightfully doing all she can to help Texas and other border states prevent the ongoing invasion at the southern border. Long may this continue.
