U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials and advisors met with Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community President Martin Harvier, SRPMIC Emergency Management leaders and Salt River Fire Department leaders on Sept. 16 to discuss a variety of topics related to the security of the SRPMIC.

Rodney Lockett, DHS senior director of intergovernmental affairs in the Office of Partnership and Engagement, led the meeting and brought with him officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and DHS headquarters.

“For this effort, what we did is bring a lot of the components together, instead of you seeing them one at a time,” Lockett told Harvier at the meeting.

Lockett said the meeting was “an opportunity for relationships to be built, and then in the future to continue building those relationships.”

The senior DHS official at the meeting was Senior Tribal Advisor on Indian Affairs David Flute (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), a former chairman of his tribe, who shared a prayer in his language. Flute also served Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when she was governor of South Dakota.

“I certainly want to help my colleagues who are going to be here for the long term to build some new relationships with tribes; or if there have been some good relationships, we can improve upon and enhance [them], and that’s really the purpose of me being here,” Flute said.

Among the topics discussed were the acceptance and use of enhanced Tribal ID cards, prison gang and drug cartel issues in tribal communities, use of heat-sensing drones to find escaped criminals, ICE enforcement and protecting government buildings.

After the meeting, the group went out to the top deck by the President’s Office for a group photo and to hear stories from Harvier about the mountain ranges in the distance.