South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden speaks to reporters from a podium on July 28, 2025, at the Public Safety Administration Building in Sioux Falls. Also visible are, from left, Dan Satterlee, director of the state Division of Criminal Investigation, and Sam Olson, Minneapolis field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Photo by John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – Since last year, South Dakota’s National Guard has helped U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport 664 people, the Department of Corrections has handed 24 inmates over to that agency, and state troopers have arrested 150 people who lack legal status.
South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden released the figures Monday in a news release announcing the state’s plans to train more troopers to help ICE.
The state Highway Patrol initially trained five troopers to question and detain people suspected of being in the country illegally on ICE’s behalf. Those troopers, and another dozen trained since, are working under a 287(g) “task force model” agreement with ICE that Rhoden initiated last May.
Such agreements allow trained state and local law enforcement to act on behalf of immigration agents during their interactions with members of the public.
The new round of training will increase the number of troopers trained in immigration enforcement to 41, the news release says, and the federal government will reimburse South Dakota $165,000 to pay for the training.
The Department of Public Safety’s spokesperson Brad Reiners said the agency only arrested the 150 people who lacked legal status, and that only ICE could say if they’d actually been deported. ICE did not immediately respond to an email on the matter.
The Department of Corrections and ICE, meanwhile, “have identified an additional 14 inmates that will be considered for federal custody and deportation,” the news release says.
Rhoden requested and received approval last year from ICE for the state’s prison system to cooperate with immigration agents through the 287(g) program’s “jail enforcement model.”
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles initially paroled 10 inmates without legal status to ICE custody last August. Rhoden’s office sent a news release at that time that included each paroled inmate’s name, age, home country and state criminal offenses. Fourteen others have been paroled since then, the most recent on May 7.
Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said the additional 14 people now “identified” for a potential federal custody transfer will appear before the parole board “over the next few months.”
The Rhoden administration announced the immigration enforcement cooperation push last summer in tandem with what would become an ongoing series of state trooper saturation patrols branded “Operation Prairie Thunder.” The patrols are not focused solely on immigration, but troopers have questioned and detained people suspected of lacking legal status across Operation Prairie Thunder’s 13 visits to South Dakota communities.
The National Guard’s role has been to process paperwork for ICE. Monday’s news release says seven Guard members — some in Sioux Falls, some in Rapid City — are involved in that work.
The news release says the National Guard “has assisted directly in processing 664 illegal immigrants who have been deported out of South Dakota.”
In email responses to South Dakota Searchlight, Rhoden spokeswoman Josie Harms said “all 664 were deported out of South Dakota via the regional offices in Rapid City and Sioux Falls. The individuals were not necessarily all originally residing in South Dakota.”
“For instance,” Harms continued, “someone traveling from one state to another could be arrested while passing through South Dakota on the interstate and then be deported out of South Dakota.”
The nonprofit Deportation Data Project collects and distributes statistics on immigration enforcement using information posted by ICE or provided by ICE through federal Freedom of Information Act requests.
The most recent data release from ICE came in March. Based on its available sources, the Deportation Data Project lists 609 immigration actions in South Dakota, not all of which are deportations.
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