SOUTH DAKOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL CLARIFIES THE SCOPE OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AGREEMENT WITH FEDS

PIERRE, S.D. (Joshua Haiar / South Dakota Searchlight) – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley shared Friday that the new immigration enforcement agreement he aims to enter into with federal authorities is the same type Gov. Larry Rhoden aims for, but said his agents will only use that authority in limited circumstances.

The agreements let officials trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ask people about their immigration status and make warrantless arrests for suspected violations.

Jackley’s requested agreement between ICE and the state Division of Criminal Investigation is limited in scope, however, he said in a Friday press release.

“To be clear, I am restricting the use of this federal authority to violent criminals and drug dealers,” Jackley said.

Jackley first announced his intent to pursue the agreement during a news conference this week with Republican attorneys general at the U.S.-Mexico border. At the time, the type of agreement was not specified.

The news came via the release of Jackley’s proposed agreement. ICE had not yet signed the shared agreement signed stateside byDCI Director Dan Satterlee.

ICE offers three types of agreements under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.  One, the Jail Enforcement Model, lets trained jailers ask those in their custody about their immigration status, and lets those jailers search ICE databases and issue immigration detention orders.

Another trains local jail staff as ICE Warrant Service Officers, allowing  them to serve  immigration warrants obtained from a judge by ICE officers to inmates already in local custody. Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead and Hughes County Sheriff Patrick Callahan both made those types of agreements earlier this spring.

The third type of agreement offers the broadest scope of authority to local officers. The Task Force Model trains locals who work outside detention centers to act as limited immigration agents, enabling them to ask those they encounter in the normal course of police business about their immigration status, and to arrest them if they’re suspected of violating immigration law. The Obama administration discontinued the type in 2012 due to concerns about racial profiling and civil rights violations. They were revived by the Trump administration earlier this year.

Jackley and Rhoden, both Republicans and potential 2026 gubernatorial candidates, have characterized their support for the agreements as moves showing them to be in lockstep with President Trump’s immigration policies.

While Jackley said in a press release that his agents would use their immigration enforcement authority in limited situations, Rhoden spokeswoman Josie Harms would not expand upon the scenarios under which state troopers would use their authority once an agreement is in place for the highway patrol.

Taneeza Islam, CEO of South Dakota Voices for Peace, said the general message will make victims of labor and sex trafficking less likely to come forward, and lets perpetrators threaten to turn their victims in for deportation if they attempt to flee.

“You have legal protections if you come forward, but victims don’t know that,” Islam said.

ICE has authority and supervision over all immigration-related activities, according to Jackley’s agreement. Authorities must undergo ICE-led training and pass federal exams. ICE covers training-related travel costs and provides instructors and materials.

 

PLANNED PARENTHOOD AFFILIATE PLANS TO CLOSE 4 CLINICS IN IOWA AND ANOTHER 4 IN MINNESOTA

ST. PAUL, MN – Four of the six Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa and four in Minnesota will shut down in a year, the Midwestern affiliate operating them said Friday, blaming a freeze in federal funds, budget cuts proposed in Congress and state restrictions on abortion.

The clinics closing in Iowa include the only Planned Parenthood facility in the state that provides abortion procedures, in Ames, home to Iowa State University. Services will be shifted and the organization will still offer medication abortions in Des Moines and medication and medical abortion services in Iowa City.

Two of the clinics being shut down by Planned Parenthood North Central States are in the Minneapolis area, in Apple Valley and Richfield. The others are in central Minnesota in Alexandria and Bemidji. Of the four, the Richfield clinic provides abortion procedures.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate said it would lay off 66 employees and ask 37 additional employees to move to different clinics. The organization also said it plans to keep investing in telemedicine services and sees 20,000 patients a year virtually. The affiliate serves five states — Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

“We have been fighting to hold together an unsustainable infrastructure as the landscape shifts around us and an onslaught of attacks continues,” Ruth Richardson, the affiliate’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Of the remaining 15 clinics operated by Planned Parenthood North Central States, six will provide abortion procedures — five of them in Minnesota, including three in the Minneapolis area. The other clinic is in Omaha, Nebraska.

The affiliate said that in April, President Donald Trump’s administration froze $2.8 million in federal funds for Minnesota to provide birth control and other services, such as cervical cancer screenings and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

While federal funds can’t be used for most abortions, abortion opponents have long argued that Planned Parenthood affiliates should not receive any taxpayer dollars, saying the money still indirectly underwrites abortion services.

Planned Parenthood North Central States also cited proposed cuts in Medicaid, which provides health coverage for low-income Americans, as well as a Trump administration proposal to eliminate funding for teenage pregnancy prevention programs.

In addition, Republican-led Iowa last year banned most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, causing the number performed there to drop 60% in the first six months the law was in effect and dramatically increasing the number of patients traveling to Minnesota and Nebraska.

After the closings, Planned Parenthood North Central States will operate 10 brick-and-mortar clinics in Minnesota, two in Iowa, two in Nebraska, and one in South Dakota. It operates none in North Dakota, though its Moorhead, Minnesota, clinic is across the Red River from Fargo, North Dakota.

 

SOUTH DAKOTA SEEKS MEDICAID WORK RULES IN SPITE OF SIMILAR MOVES BY CONGRESS

PIERRE, S.D. (Makenzie Huber / South Dakota Searchlight) – Despite Republican U.S. Congress members’ intentions to set Medicaid work requirements at a federal level, South Dakota officials plan to ask President Donald Trump to approve their own set of Medicaid work requirements.

Medicaid is government-funded health insurance for people with low incomes, and for adults and children with disabilities. South Dakotans voted in 2022 to expand Medicaid to adults with incomes below 138% of the poverty level, a decision that allowed the state to capitalize on a 90% federal funding match. In 2024, voters passed another constitutional amendment to let the state to seek approval from the federal government to impose Medicaid work requirements.

The state’s waiver proposal seeking approval for a Medicaid work requirement had been drafted by the time Congress began to debate work requirements at the federal level this year.

Individuals working, earning an income and gaining “independence and self-sufficiency” experience “greater health and economic well-being,” the proposal states.

Ben Hanson, North and South Dakota government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said barriers to accessible and affordable health care hurt South Dakotans in the long run. He worries work requirements at the state or federal level will burden employees and small business owners with paperwork. A majority  of Medicaid recipients already work or are exempted from work, he said.

Given South Dakota’s tight budget outlook, he worries lawmakers won’t pay to properly staff and oversee a work requirement program. Too little staff and too much paperwork, could keepSouth Dakotans from seeking needed care, he said, which could lead to more costly expenses if a medical condition goes untreated.

“It seems like it’s set up for non-success,” Hanson said.

The state will take public comment on its proposal through June 18.

How is SD’s proposal different from the federal proposal?

At the federal level, proposed Medicaid work requirements would mandate those between 19 and 65 who rely on the state-federal health program to work, participate in community service, or attend an educational program for at least 80 hours each month.

South Dakota’s state-level work rules, as proposed, wouldn’t require employed Medicaid recipients to work or be in school for a set number of hours. The state would review compliance on an annual basis, at the time of Medicaid renewal.

The federal government also has more exceptions to its proposed changes than the state.

South Dakota would allow exceptions for people who are:

Pregnant or postpartum,

Disabled, as determined by the Social Security Administration,

Have a cancer or other serious or terminal medical condition verified by a physician,

In an intensive behavioral health treatment program, hospitalized or living in a nursing home facility,

In an area with at least unemployment 20% higher than the national average and are exempt from SNAP requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents.

People who would meet the state’s requirements are:

Employed

Enrolled in job training or school

Caretakers for a dependent child in their home

Caretakers for an elderly or disabled person in their home

People who already meet work requirements for other federal programs like SNAP or unemployment insurance.

The federal program would also exempt tribal community members, those in the foster care system, people who were in foster care who are younger than 26, individuals released from incarceration in the last 90 days, among others, from work requirements.

During Trump’s first administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved 13 state work requirement waivers. Arkansas’ program was the first to implement its program in 2018, but that state was stopped by a federal court after nine months. About 18,000 people lost coverage in Arkansas. Employment levels did not increase.

The Biden administration rescinded all work requirement approvals, but Georgia started its own work requirement program in July 2023 without federal support.

How would work requirements impact South Dakota’s Medicaid expansion enrollment?

Per South Dakota Department of Social Services’ estimate, 80% of the people who got coverage under Medicaid expansion already work or wouldn’t have to under its proposed work requirement.

South Dakota’s Medicaid expansion population as of April 2025 stood at 30,542. Covering the expansion population will cost about $364.5 million this year.

A work requirement program would reduce enrollment by 5-10% in the first year, the department said.

That would save the Medicaid program between $48.9 million and $71 million in the first year, the department claims. In the following years, the department expects enrollment to stay flat if work requirements are implemented rather than grow at a previously anticipated 2% each year.

South Dakota voters will decide next year whether to continue requiring Medicaid expansion if federal support for the program declines. The ballot question will ask voters to authorize the termination of Medicaid expansion if federal support falls below 90%.

In addition to setting work requirements at a federal level, Republicans pushed a Medicaid overhaul through the House in a budget reconciliation package this week. The changes reduce the program by $625 million over 10 years under the latest estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.