A seventh Native American tribe has banned Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) from their land after she accused some tribal leaders of not doing enough to combat drug cartels.
The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe confirmed Noem had been banned from their reservation in a post on Facebook on Tuesday after the council unanimously voted in favor of banning the governor. She has now been banned from all but two Native American reservations in South Dakota.
Noem has had a strained relationship with many of the Native American tribes during her tenure as governor, but came under fire for recent comments she has made about the handling of drug cartels on tribal lands.
“Tribals leaders should take action to ban the cartels from their lands and accept my offer to help them restore law and order to their communities while protecting their sovereignty. We can only do this through partnerships because the Biden Administration is failing to do their job,” Noem posted on X last week.
She has also tied drug cartels on tribal lands to President Joe Biden’s handling of border security — with some tribal leaders decrying her attacks as being a way to raise her profile in the race to be former President Donald Trump’s vice president.
“The people voted unanimously to ban her along with the tribal council for her derogatory remarks about the tribes and cartels,” tribal council member Kyle Loudner told the Dakota Scout. “And about the remarks she made about the children being nobodies their whole lives because of the parents.” Noem made remarks about children on the reservation during a series of March town halls.
On Tuesday, Noem announced she had made Algin Young the Tribal Law Enforcement Liaison for her administration as part of her public safety efforts. Young previously served as chief of police for the Pine Ridge Reservation, and she commended his testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs about cartels on reservations.
“The federal government is turning their backs on our tribal reservations. The lack of tribal law enforcement officers combined with the warzone at our Southern Border has created multiple crises on our reservations,” Noem said in a statement on Tuesday.
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“Algin Young is well respected within our tribal communities and at the federal level. His knowledge will help in our efforts to restore law and order in Indian country,” she added.
Noem has also faced intense criticism over an anecdote in her recently released book, where she tells the story of shooting her family’s 14-month-old hunting dog Cricket several years ago.
