WATERTOWN, S.D. (KFGO/KWAT)–It’s no secret that relations between Governor Kristi Noem and tribal leaders in South Dakota are strained.
The rift grew even wider recently when the governor said drug cartels are doing big business on reservation land, and tribal leaders are turning a blind eye to it.
“We’ve got a war zone down at the southern border,” Noem says. “But what most people don’t understand is that those cartels that are trafficking drugs and people across our southern border have set up shop in South Dakota, and they’ve done it in our tribal reservation areas because I don’t have any jurisdiction there. The state of South Dakota and our highway patrol officers can’t go there and enforce the law and prosecute these these folks that are trafficking drugs.”
Tribal leaders have denied the presence of drug cartels, but Noem says there’s evidence that cartels are on reservations.
“We have all kinds of pictures and videos of cartel members, bandido members, in Pine Ridge, in Wounded Knee, on Rosebud, in Cheyenne River,” Noem says. “They are there. They are proliferating their crimes and drugs and the tribal leaders are allowing it.”
The Standing Rock, Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes have banned Governor Noem from their reservation lands.
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