They Just Disappeared!

Just as the KGB could make people disappear during the Cold War, so can ICE. Several Oglala Sioux tribal members were picked up by ICE, yet the agency has refused to comment on the detention—even going so far as to not acknowledge that they have them in custody!

Oglala Sioux Tribe leader says ICE detained tribal citizens in Minneapolis operation
KVIH
by MINA ALLEN
January 14, 2026

The president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe is calling on federal authorities to immediately release tribal citizens who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during an operation at a Minneapolis homeless encampment last week.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out said three of four tribal members arrested Friday were transferred to an ICE detention facility at Fort Snelling. The statement accompanied a formal memorandum sent to federal immigration officials demanding their release.

Star Comes Out emphasized that tribal citizens are not subject to immigration enforcement, noting that they hold U.S. citizenship by law and citizenship within their tribal nation by treaty. “Tribal citizens are not aliens and fall completely outside immigration jurisdiction,” he said.

Officials have not provided clear details about why the men were detained. According to Star Comes Out, when the tribe contacted the Department of Homeland Security seeking information, the agency shared only the first names of the detainees and declined to release additional details unless the tribe agreed to enter into a formal immigration enforcement agreement with ICE.

 The United States government is using extortion to force the tribe to back off on the rights guaranteed to its members by the Constitution and the laws of this land!

That was in the middle of January. By February:

 'A State of Panic’: Native Americans Left in the Dark Weeks After ICE Arrests
Time
by Philip Wang
Feb 18, 2026

For Native American leaders, the recent wave of immigration arrests has felt less like an isolated enforcement effort and more like a pattern: federal action first, explanations later.

That anxiety intensified after reports last month that four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe were detained during a sweeping immigration operation in Minneapolis. When Frank Star Comes Out, the tribe’s president, learned of the arrests, he said he immediately called the Department of Homeland Security.

“We were in contact with DHS, but they wanted names, and I said, ‘Well, we want names, too. What are you doing? Detaining Native Americans?’ But they couldn't answer that. So that conversation just went nowhere, stalemate,” President Frank Star Comes Out tells TIME. 

Star Comes Out, who received the report from a tribal member doing street outreach work with homeless Native American people in the Twin Cities, said he reached out to Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) officials for help without much success.

 I guess the officials at ICE have never heard of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Does this mean that, in the eyes of ICE, homeless people are nationless people?

In March...

Oglala Sioux Tribe Rejects ICE Conditions for Information on Detained Members
Native News Online
by Levi Rickert
March 4, 2026

Leaders of the Oglala Sioux Tribe are demanding the immediate release of tribal citizens held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and are pushing back on federal conditions for information about their whereabouts.

Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out said in a memorandum to Department of Homeland Security officials that three of four tribal members detained during immigration enforcement activity in Minneapolis remain in ICE custody at the Fort Snelling facility, a site with historical significance for Indigenous people. One of the four has since been released.

[…]

Tribal leaders called the reported condition an unacceptable infringement on tribal sovereignty, saying treaties between the federal government and sovereign nations do not allow federal agencies to impose immigration enforcement arrangements as a prerequisite for transparency.

The dispute has drawn criticism from Indigenous rights advocates, who say the detentions reflect broader concerns about racial profiling and a lack of understanding among federal agents about tribal citizenship and sovereign status.

Tribal officials are seeking direct government-to-government consultations and written assurances that enrolled tribal citizens will not be subject to immigration detention moving forward.

Crickets… that is all the tribal leaders have heard!

It is fundamentally wrong that this has been going on for over four months. American citizens are being unlawfully detained!