The president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe has walked back claims he made in a memo and press release earlier this week that immigration enforcement arrested four tribal members and that the federal government tried to extract an 'immigration agreement' out of the tribe in return for information about their members’ whereabouts.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it can’t verify claims that any of their officers arrested or 'even encountered' members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe or found anyone in their detention centers claiming to be a tribal member. They denied asking the tribe for any kind of agreement.
Star Comes Out said Tuesday in a message on Facebook that the men were arrested in Minneapolis, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has launched its biggest operation ever and is increasingly clashing with protesters and residents angry at the agency’s tactics.
In a revised statement, Star Comes Out indicated that there was no such demand from federal officials and instead described the tribe’s communications with them as cooperative. He began the day with an assertion that the tribe was working with state and federal officials to verify reports of the arrests, calling them a treaty violation.
The Department of Homeland Security has pushed back against claims of arrests, asserting that it 'has not uncovered any claims by individuals in our detention centers that they are members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe' and maintained that basic demographics were needed for proper verification.
This development stirs longstanding tensions between Native American nations and federal immigration policies, particularly in light of ongoing discussions regarding the welfare of tribal communities amid increasing ICE activity across the nation.
