South Dakota Governor Threatens Two Native American Tribes With Lawsuit Over Coronavirus Checkpoints

A Native American tribe in South Dakota has refused a request by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) to remove coronavirus checkpoints along a state highway at their reservation.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is one of two tribes that received a letter from Noem’s office that they had 48 hours to remove the checkpoints they set up to protect their communities from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Noem had threatened to sue the tribes at the federal level if the tribes failed to remove them by the deadline the state set. The state also sent a letter to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who also set up a coronavirus checkpoint.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, South Dakota has seen at least 3,500 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 with less than 40 deaths. State data shows that 198 Native Americans in the state have tested positive for the infection.

The Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Sioux tribes set up the checkpoints to regulate entry to and passage through their reservations. Both tribes issued stringent quarantine measures and curfews to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in their communities before Noem issued any stay-at-home or lockdown order statewide

Harold Frazier, the chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said that his reservation is three hours away from the nearest critical care facility and only operates an eight-bed health facility servicing 12,000 people.

“With the lack of resources we have medically, [the checkpoint] is our best tool we have right now to try to prevent [the spread of Covid-19],” Frazier told CNN. “We want to ensure that people coming from 'hot spots' or highly infected areas, we ask them to go around our land.”

In a statement, Frazier rejected Noem’s request to remove the checkpoint in his tribe told state officials, “You continuing to interfere in our efforts to do what science and facts dictate seriously undermine our ability to protect everyone on the reservation.”

Noem said in a statement that the tribes were interfering with or regulating traffic on highways that they had no jurisdiction over and demanded that they remove the checkpoints.

She urged the tribes in the letter to cooperate with state officials to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. “We are strongest when we work together; this includes our battle against COVID-19,” she also said in the statement.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has not yet responded to Noem's letter.