ICE Raids South Dakota Businesses Three Days After DHS Head Kristi Noem’s Visit Was Greeted With Protests

This is exactly what it looks like: the actions of an administration infested by vindictive thugs.

Former South Dakota governor and current DHS boss Kristi Noem returned to South Dakota to get her ego stroked a bit by Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota. While Noem was picking up a fake degree and presumably passing on the virtues of bootlicking and fascism to graduates, more than 200 protesters were gathered outside, expressing their displeasure with Noem and the Trump Administration generally.

Even better, a few hundred miles away, a student Noem’s agency is desperately trying to deport took home two real degrees from South Dakota Mines while Noem was being gifted with an honorary degree by the university in Madison.

[Priya] Saxena and her attorney, Jim Leach, of Rapid City, sued and won a temporary restraining order that assured Saxena’s graduation and will halt the government’s action against her until at least next week, when she has a hearing on her request for a court order to stop her deportation while the lawsuit proceeds. Saxena and her attorney have said in court filings that she has not committed a deportable offense, and have called the government’s actions “lawless.”

Saxena’s graduation went smoothly Saturday as she crossed the stage and received applause from the audience at Summit Arena in Rapid City. 

All things considered, the protest was pretty mild and just the sort of thing politicians should expect when they appear anywhere. Of course, Noem isn’t a regular politician. She’s a die-hard member of the Trump team. And when things happen to people in Trump’s orbit, people get punished. What followed Noem’s return to South Dakota was pure vindictiveness.

U.S. immigration officials conducted a “worksite enforcement action” that resulted in eight arrests Tuesday in Madison, three days after their boss, Kristi Noem, was subjected to a protest in the same South Dakota city.

At least one of the two targeted businesses, Manitou Equipment, was awarded financial support from the state while Noem was governor.

The media office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a written statement that the agency’s action was at Manitou and also at Global Polymer Industries “in response to information or allegations received by ICE Homeland Security Investigations.”

In total, eight people were detained by ICE and slated for deportation. Neither of these businesses were ever raided during Noem’s six years as governor or during her previous 12 years as a state representative. In fact, there have been zero raids of businesses by ICE since Trump took office and appointed Noem as head of the DHS. Two raids within three days of Noem’s visit doesn’t look like an “enforcement action.” It looks like the end result of someone so thin-skinned their first urge was to lash out because the reaction to their visit was limited to fawning adulation.

We have thugs running the country who are more than willing to use government force to mete out punishment for the mildest of slights, something the guy at the top has made clear is his preferred course of action in situations like these.