South Dakota tribe banned Gov. Noem from reservation over comments on U.S.-Mexico border

A South Dakota tribe has banned Republican Gov. Kristi Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation following her remarks on deterring immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“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 statement on Friday.

“Oyate” means people or nation.

Star Comes Out accused Noem of using the border issues as a way to get former president Donald Trump re-elected and increase her chance of being his choice for vice president.

The tribal leader said some migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border are in search of a "better life" and are indigenous people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.

“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 said.

Noem addressed Star Comes Out remarks in a statement on Saturday.

“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," Noem said.

Star Comes Out also said he took offense to Noem’s remarks that a gang called Ghost Dancers is murdering people on the Pine Ridge Reservation and is affiliated with border-crossing cartels that use South Dakota reservations to spread drugs throughout the Midwest.

Star Comes Out said the Ghost Dance is one of the Oglala Sioux’s “most sacred ceremonies,” and “was used with blatant disrespect and is insulting to our Oyate."

Noem in her response said she's not the "one with a stiff arm, here."

“You can’t build relationships if you don’t spend time together,’” she added. “I stand ready to work with any of our state’s Native American tribes to build such a relationship.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.