South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has scheduled a joint session of the legislature tomorrow to discuss what she calls “the war zone at our nation’s southern border.”
Noem and the rest of the nation’s Republican governor visited the Texas-Mexico border last week, and she says she’ll give South Dakota lawmakers a briefing on what she saw and heard.
Noem wrote in a letter to legislative leaders that she will talk about the potential South Dakota response, explaining that “because of the dire situation, it is pertinent that we have a conversation quickly.”
Noem told CNN on Sunday that “Texas should stand their ground” in the border dispute with the Biden administration.
South Dakota is the first state in the nation to take the rare step of calling a joint session to support Texas.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has defied a recent U-S Supreme Court ruling and refused to allow federal agents to remove physical barricades, like razor wire, from the southern border.
Noem and the other Republican governors, including Jim Pillen of Nebraska and Mark Gordon of Wyoming have signed off on Abbott’s decision, leading others to call the actions by the governors “a constitutional crisis.”
In a related development, the 27 Republican state attorneys general have sent a letter to the Biden administration in support of Texas.
In it, Marty Jackley of South Dakota, Mike Hilgers of Nebraska, and the others say the administration should support the efforts of Texas to secure the border rather than oppose it.
Jackley says states have a right under the U-S Constitution to defend themselves from invasion and that “Washington’s continued failure to secure our southern border is directly affecting South Dakota with an unlimited supply of methamphetamine and fentanyl,”