The president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe issued a revised memo Thursday walking back his earlier public claims that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested four tribal members in Minneapolis and that federal officials had demanded an immigration agreement from the tribe in exchange for information. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it could not verify that any of its officers had arrested or even encountered members of the tribe.
The reversal came as Native American communities across the country raised alarm over potential racial profiling during the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement operations, and as some tribes reconsidered existing or prospective contracts with federal immigration agencies.
Original claims
Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out said Tuesday in a Facebook post that ICE had detained four tribal members in Minneapolis, where ICE launched what the agency described as its largest-ever operation. He said that when the tribe sought information about the detained men — whose first names the tribe said it had — federal officials replied that “the Tribe could access that information if we entered an immigration agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.” Star Comes Out called the detentions “a treaty violation.”
Revised account
In the memo released Thursday, Star Comes Out said his earlier statement had been “misinterpreted.” He said the tribe had been in “cooperative communications” with federal officials, and that those officials had described entering an agreement as “one option for the Tribe to have easier access to information” — not a demand. He did not specify what type of agreement was described.
He said the tribe remained “working with Tribal, State, and Federal officials to verify” reports that tribal members in Minneapolis had been arrested. Star Comes Out did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Associated Press, including after the Thursday memo’s release.
DHS response
DHS said it had “not uncovered any claims by individuals in our detention centers that they are members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe” and could not verify that its officers had arrested or encountered anyone from the tribe.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said: “ICE did NOT ask the tribe for any kind of agreement, we have simply asked for basic information on the individuals, such as names and date of birth so that we can run a proper check to provide them with the facts.”
A pattern of ICE encounters with tribal members
The Oglala Sioux dispute arose against a backdrop of reported ICE encounters with Native Americans in other parts of the country. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said tribal citizens reported being stopped and detained by ICE officers in Arizona and New Mexico; he and other tribal leaders advised members to carry tribal identification at all times.
In November, Elaine Miles — a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon and an actress known for her roles in “Northern Exposure” and “The Last of Us” — said ICE officers in Washington state told her that her tribal identification card looked fake. In a separate November incident, a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community was arrested in Iowa and was mistakenly slated for transfer to ICE before the error was caught and she was released, according to local media reports.
History of tension with Noem
The dispute carried the weight of prior friction between the Oglala Sioux and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who served as governor of South Dakota before joining the Trump administration. In 2024, Star Comes Out banned Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation after Noem claimed, without evidence, that drug cartels were infiltrating reservations in the state. Noem also told federal lawmakers that a gang she called the Ghost Dancers was affiliated with cartels and committing murder on the reservation.
Star Comes Out said at the time that her reference took “blatant disrespect” at one of the tribe’s “most sacred ceremonies,” using the Lakota word “Oyate” — meaning “people” or “nation” — to describe what had been insulted. Noem was banned from most of the nine South Dakota reservations during her time as governor.
Tribes rethink federal contracts
The episode unfolded as some tribes severed or questioned ties to federal immigration agencies. A business entity associated with the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation ended a nearly $30 million federal contract, signed in October, to develop early designs for immigrant detention centers across the country. Tribal members had criticized the arrangement online, questioning how a tribe whose own ancestors were forced from the Great Lakes region two centuries ago could participate in the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort.
In Alaska, Indigenous shareholders of the Bering Straits Native Corporation published an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News calling for the company to divest from all immigration detention centers. A spokesperson for the company did not respond to a request for comment.