(The Center Square) – When South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem declared an invasion before the state legislature, she became the first governor in modern history to do so.
Texas Gov. Sam Houston referred to an invasion being fought on two fronts before the Texas legislature in 1860, The Center Square first reported.
While Gov. Greg Abbott has invoked constitutional clauses, he has not declared an invasion or laid out the constitutional authority of Texas’ right to self-defense before the Texas legislature. As he’s issued executive orders and sent letters to President Joe Biden citing Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense, 55 Texas counties have passed invasion resolutions and 60 have issued disaster declarations, citing the border crisis.
Last month, Noem spoke before the South Dakota legislature to specifically address the southern border crisis. She said, “Nearly 10 million foreign nationals have broken federal law and they’ve infiltrated our country within the past three years bringing with them drugs, trafficking, crime, and violence,” creating a national security crisis. While American history is “proudly built on the stories of our ancestors who came to this country for opportunity and for a new beginning,” she said, “today, many of those who are entering our country under the current policies of the Biden administration are known terrorists. They’re criminals, they’re human traffickers, and they’re drug cartel members.”
Because of Biden’s policies, “people from over a hundred different countries have heard the story of our open border,” she said. “Countries such as Venezuela are known to be emptying out their prisons and their mental institutions, and they’re sending them to America.
“South Dakota is directly affected by this invasion,” she continued. “We are affected by cartel presence right here on our tribal reservations, by the spread of drugs and human trafficking throughout our communities and by the drain on our resources at the local, the state, and the federal level.”
Noem reiterated a point made by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that when delegates ratified the U.S. Constitution, they “would not have done so if they did not have the power to defend themselves.” DeSantis referred to the Guarantee and Self-Defense clauses of the U.S. Constitution, which Abbott has cited in executive orders and Texas counties have cited in invasion resolutions.
Noem cited the Guarantee Clause, Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that “the U.S. shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.”
She asked, “Who repels those invasions?” She replied, the states “calling forth of the militia to repel invasions,” citing, Article 1, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution, which “provides for states to enter into compacts with other states if they are actually invaded.”
She also cited Federalist Paper 29, written by founding father Alexander Hamilton, who helped craft the Constitution. Hamilton made “very clear that the militia is to be under the purview of the states and to be made up of the people,” she said. “Hamilton wrote, ‘In times of invasion, it would be natural and proper that the militia of a neighboring state should be marched into another to resist a common enemy or to guard the republic against the violence of faction or sedition.’”
“Now ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America is in a time of invasion,” Noem declared. “The invasion is coming over our southern border. The 50 states have a common enemy, and that enemy is the Mexican drug cartels. They’re waging war against our nation, and these cartels are perpetuating violence in each of our states.”
Texas county invasion resolutions have pointed to Mexican cartels acting as paramilitary organizations facilitating migrant warfare, as have military experts, The Center Square has exclusively reported.
“A government that does not value the security of its people is not only negligent, but it’s inhumane,” Noem said. “When the federal government fails to uphold its duty to the people, the responsibility falls to the states.”
After visiting the U.S.-Mexico border, she said, she has “witnessed firsthand this invasion,” saying, “the cartels have operational control of our border.”
After Abbott first asked states for reinforcements nearly three years ago, “South Dakota was the first state in the nation to send National Guard soldiers to help,” she said, and has since sent troops and additional resources.
Citing fentanyl deaths and cartel criminal activity on tribal reservations, she said, “The war is primarily being fought at the southern border, but it affects us here. We might see the effects differently than Texas does right now, but make no mistake, that open border affects everyone.”
“It is South Dakota’s duty to protect our people,” she said. “If we lose this country, where will we go? Every American throughout history has the responsibility to preserve, to protect, and to proliferate the ideas upon which our founders built this nation. This is a test of our endurance. This is a test of our patriotism. This is a test of the very foundation of our nation.”
