South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has been banned by two more tribes, leaving her unable to enter 20% of her state.
Six tribes total have now barred her from their reservations, with the Yankton Sioux Tribe and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribe voting last week to invoke their sovereign right to exclude her from their lands.
They joined the Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes, which banned her earlier this year. Three tribes in the state who have not yet done so.
Noem has been trash-talking Indigenous Peoples and reservation life, alleging publicly that tribal leaders were neglecting children and the poor in favor of catering to drug cartels on their reservations.
“We’ve got some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there, and that’s why they attack me every day,” Noem said at a March forum. “But I’m going to fight for the people who actually live in those situations, who call me and text me every day.”
While reservations have been seeking solutions to crime problems, tribal leaders were stunned at her accusations.
“How dare the governor allege that Sioux Tribal Councils do not care about their communities or their children and, worse, that they are involved in nefarious activities?” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out said in April.
The Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe said Noem was banned for statements and actions deemed “injurious to the parents of tribal children,” KELO-TV reported.
Also offensive to tribes is Noem’s desire to send razor wire and security personnel to Texas to stop migrants from trying to cross into the U.S. from Mexico.
The governor was already facing criticism revealing in her memoir that she shot a 14-month-old puppy for misbehaving, along with a “disgusting, musky, rancid” goat her family owned. She detailed the killings in her memoir released last Tuesday, describing how wirehair pointer Cricket got the death penalty for being aggressive and untrainable.
With News Wire Services
