Kilmar Abrego Garcia…

A man provided immigration protections by the United States government for the last six years.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia…

A man with an uncorroborated allegation of an MS 13 gang affiliation, a minimal police record with no charges pressed, and a family, home, and job in Maryland.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia…

A man taken mistakenly by ICE officers from his vehicle in an IKEA parking lot in front of his 5-year-old son, transported, and imprisoned in a foreign country.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia…

A man ordered remanded back to the United States of America by every level of U.S. federal court, including the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous vote.

Why repeat his name again and again? Why should we citizens of South Dakota care? Because the person making the decisions about what has happened and what is happening to Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the Homeland Security secretary and former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem. And we, as South Dakotans, have to take some responsibility for what is happening to Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

We allowed her to govern shamelessly in many of the same ways she is now representing our country. We watched as she travelled the country on our dime in a plane owned by the state and with security paid for by the state to be a Donald Trump spokesmodel on the campaign as she lobbied for a top-level position in a future Trump cabinet. Before that, we watched as she built her own high definition television studio in the basement of the state Capitol building and then denied state media outlets access. We watched as she alienated the tribes of every reservation in the state over COVID restrictions and tenuous connections to drug cartels. We watched as she allowed for our state to become the center of a number of COVID breakouts and deaths. We watched as she spent our money on advertising campaigns that were a precursor to the “ICE Barbie” moniker that she now wears…not to mention the ill-conceived anti-methamphetamine ad campaign and promotion of a Texas dental clinic on the official state Facebook page that gave her her winning smile. And then there’s the train wreck of a book tour that has made what happened to her family’s late dog Cricket a familiar nationwide story.

I’m not so sure that all the photo ops and TikToks and grandstanding will matter in the long run.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia…

No, Secretary Noem. It won’t be the photo ops in costume, it won’t be the rare, expensive Rolex watch, it won’t be the highly produced commercials, and it won’t be your winning smile that you will be remembered for. What will be forever linked to you as big, bright, and shiny as anything you’ve ever said or done or worn are three words…

…Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

The man sitting in an El Salvadoran prison without cause, without recourse, without due process is very quickly and very likely becoming Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem’s legacy in U.S. history.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia…

One of many. Our friends, our colleagues, our classmates, our employees, our neighbors. Be aware fellow South Dakotans of what we have wrought and remember words attributed to the Rev. John Bradford watching a group of prisoners being led to their execution: There but for the grace of God, go I.

Kilmar…Abrego…Garcia.