South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) warned in a Newsmax interview on Wednesday that the Mexican drug cartel is selling drugs and trafficking people in South Dakota by operating on tribal land where only the federal government has jurisdiction in the United States because the Joe Biden Administration is purposely doing nothing about the cartels.

“Even though South Dakota isn’t a neighboring state to Texas, we’re on the front lines of this thing,” said Noem. “I’ve got nine Native American tribes, and the cartels are set up on our tribal grounds. They are facilitating this drug trafficking, this human trafficking through my tribal grounds here in South Dakota because I don’t have jurisdiction there.”

“The Department of Justice and the federal government have jurisdiction on our reservations. I don’t as a state, so [the cartels are] using these areas of federal lands as havens for their criminal activity. Every single state literally is a border state because we’ve got these cartels throughout the country in protected areas, and Joe Biden is letting it happen,” Noem added.

The South Dakota governor also discussed her recent visit to the Texas border with Mexico: “Talking to the Texas National Guard when I was down there, they said the reason that the federal government took them to court was because the razor wire they were putting up was actually working.”

The warzone at the Southern Border affects us here at home in South Dakota because the cartels have a presence on our tribal reservations and are devastating our communities with drugs and human trafficking.

We don’t want America to look like Europe in just a year or two.

We… pic.twitter.com/PXoYAZDRn2

— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) January 27, 2024

“They had put it up [ … ] in a different method that actually kept off even the able-bodied military-aged men to climb and cross over it. You could see everywhere they had installed this new way of putting this barrier in place. It worked, and that’s when the federal government decided to take them to court and sue them to have to take it down,” Noem said.

“That’s what’s incredible to me. We have a president that’s not just ignoring federal law, he’s knowingly violating federal law and helping and facilitating this invasion,” she added.

In an interview the following day on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” Noem made the startling and sobering claim that the cartel is trafficking minors in her state on tribal grounds. “They’re not just at the border, they’re here in South Dakota and they’re bringing fentanyl in that’s killing our kids and trafficking our children,” she said.

The cartels are pushing people across the border and creating unsafe situations.

Texas DPS is literally saving lives while protecting their people.

Democrats are criticizing them for doing their job — South Dakota is proud to stand with Texas. pic.twitter.com/BlGxigzi63

— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) January 29, 2024