The Oglala Sioux Tribe has walked back earlier claims that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been uncooperative with the tribe’s efforts to locate homeless tribal members it previously said were detained from Minneapolis earlier this month.
The tribe said it is still trying to verify the claims of its members being detained; DHS said it has been unable to locate any such people.
The development comes after DHS objected to the characterization that it had applied pressure on the tribe to enter into an immigration agreement with ICE as a prerequisite for obtaining information about any detained members.
“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,” DHS told the Minnesota Star Tribune in a statement.
In a memo sent Thursday to the Department of the Interior, Department of Homeland Security and Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Oglala Sioux Tribe agreed it was not accurate to suggest that federal officials would only provide information about detained tribal citizens if the tribe entered into an immigration enforcement agreement.
Rather, federal officials informed the tribe that an immigration agreement was one avenue for the tribe to access information more smoothly, according to the memo. Nevertheless, the Oglala Sioux tribe does not intend to sign onto an agreement because of its treaty-based, nation-to-nation relationship with the United States, the memo states.
“We will not enter an agreement that would authorize, or make it easier for, ICE or Homeland Security to come onto our tribal homeland to arrest or detain our tribal members,” tribal President Frank Star Comes Out said in the memo, which is clarifies a previous memo accusing ICE of detaining tribal members.
The tribe is still working with federal and state officials to verify reports of tribal members detained by ICE, the memo said.
