Feb. 4 (UPI) — South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has been banned from the Pine Ridge Reservation after saying she wanted to send razor wire and security personnel to Texas to help that state’s effort to deter immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
She also claimed cartels are infiltrating South Dakota’s reservations.
“Due to the safety of the Oyate, effective immediately, you are hereby Banished from the homelands of the Oglala Sioux Tribe!” Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out said in a Friday statement addressed to Noem. “Oyate” is an Indigenous word for nation or people.
Noem made her remarks in a speech to lawmakers Wednesday during which she said a gang known as the Ghost Dancers is murdering people on the Pine Ridge Reservation and is also affiliated with border-crossing cartels that use South Dakota reservations to spread drugs throughout the Midwest.
Star Comes Out argued that Noem was trying to use the border issue to garner support from former U.S. President Donald Trump and better her chances of becoming his running mate in the presidential election.