'Call me when you're an American': Gov. Noem says South Dakota won't help manage border crisis

Sioux Falls Argus Leader

South Dakota is home to an estimated 5,000 undocumented immigrants.

But Gov. Kristi Noem says those people along with any migrants right now in custody of the federal government at the southern border are not welcome in South Dakota.

"South Dakota won't be taking any illegal immigrants that the Biden Administration wants to relocate," the first-term governor wrote on social media Wednesday morning.

The post comes in reaction to media reports that President Joe Biden's administration is seeking to fly migrants who've arrived at the southern border to northern and coastal states.

In recent weeks, there's been an uptick in unaccompanied migrant children to the border, and the federal government has struggled to process them out of short-term holding facilities to temporary facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

But South Dakota won't be a willing partner in those efforts if Noem has anything to do with it.

"My message to illegal immigrants... call me when you're an American," the governor wrote on the social media website Twitter.

Ian Fury, Noem's spokesman, said Wednesday morning that the Governor's Office hasn't received a direct request by the Biden administration to house migrant children awaiting processing of asylee petitions, but the governor is "sending the message" that should one be made, it will be denied.

There is, however, an open request from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seeking states and organizations willing to provide assistance as tens of thousands of migrants await processing at the border.

Hundreds of unaccompanied immigrant children have been released in South Dakota in recent years, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And 20 arrived between October 2020 and February 2021.

The HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement oversees the federal relocation program.

In South Dakota, Lutheran Social Services resettles refugees through the Center for New Americans. But the organization is not involved in handling the influx of migrants arriving to the southern border right now.

"We are not planning to respond to that request," said Rebecca Kiesow-Knudsen, Chief Operating Officer for Lutheran Social Services South Dakota.

According to the American Immigration Council, about 5,000 of South Dakota's 35,000 foreign-born residents do not have legal status. Of the immigrants here, about 36% are naturalized American citizens and 5,200 more are eligible to naturalize.

South Dakota Voices for Peace, a nonprofit that pays for legal fees for unaccompanied migrant children, denounced Noem in a news release Wednesday calling her social media post racist. Leadership with the organization did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the Argus Leader.

Fury said the governor's comments were not directed at non-citizens with legal status.

"Gov. Noem welcomes legal immigrants to South Dakota," he said.