“There will never be amnesty under President Trump. The president is very clear that he doesn’t believe that the law should apply to some people and not to others, and that there should be consequences for some people and not for others.” – Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, when asked about leniency for undocumented farm workers.

In the rowdy HBO series “Deadwood,” the imminent annexation of the Black Hills to Dakota Territory is depicted in a conversation between the profane brothel owner Al Swearengen and a corrupt politician from the territorial capital in Yankton.

The aptly named Swearengen (based on a real character) knew that he and the speculators, gold-panners, outlaws and miners pouring into the Black Hills were violating the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that gave the Sioux “absolute and undisturbed use” of its pine-cloaked, granite-spired mountains and lush valleys. Once George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry discovered gold in the Black Hills in 1874, the rush was on. But after the June 1876 annihilation of Custer and his cavalry at the Little Bighorn more than 200 miles northwest of Deadwood, the Sioux were on the run from the U.S. military or being pushed onto smaller reservations. The government abandoned the 1868 treaty and seized the Black Hills.

The Yankton politician had come to Deadwood with an amnesty loophole for Swearengen and his fellow treaty breakers. Citing the Northwest Ordinance, a 1787 law setting legal guidelines for forming new states out of unceded territory, the politician hypothesized that “a citizen........

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