Opinion: Federal shutdown would be 'bad for Indian Country and the whole country'
Native News Online this week outlined the ways a federal shutdown would affect the 574 federally recognized tribes in the U.S.:
Federally funded tribal programs would not see any new funds until funding bills pass.
If tribes have funds left over from previous years, they could use those funds to continue program operations and pay employees until those funds run dry.
If tribes do not have any leftover funds, they will be forced to find other funding sources or shutter programs entirely.
"Past government shutdowns have taken the lives of Native citizens, harmed their well-being, and forced tribal governments, tribal organizations, and individual citizens to go into debt to cover the United States' broken promises," editor Levi Rickert writes.
Parts of the federal government would cease operations if there is a lapse in appropriations caused by the absence of funding before the start of the new fiscal year October 1.
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FILE - gillnetters repair a net near the mouth of the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon, Sept. 7, 2012. President Joe Biden has ordered federal agencies to restore fish populations to Columbia River Basin.
White House orders agencies: Restore fish to Columbia River Basin
This week, President Joe Biden ordered federal departments and agencies to do what it takes to restore healthy fish populations in the Columbia River Basin.
"It is a priority of my Administration to honor Federal trust and treaty responsibilities to Tribal Nations — including to those Tribal Nations harmed by the construction and operation of Federal dams," Biden said in a presidential memorandum released Wednesday.
To that end, Biden gave departments and agencies 120 days to review any programs affecting salmon, steelhead and other native fish populations in the basin and an additional 100 days to report to the Office of Management and Budget what changes they will make and what they will need to get the job done.
Salmon once occupied nearly 13,000 miles of Columbia River Basin streams and rivers and were a mainstay of regional tribal economies and cultures.
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U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland listen as April Hiosik Ignacio, center, speaks of her grandmother's time in an Indian boarding school, Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, at the Gila Crossing Community School in Laveen, Ariz.
Interior Department to document, make public, Native American boarding school stories
The Interior Department this week announced a new project to document and make available to the public stories of Native American children forced into the federal Indian boarding school system.
"Creating a permanent oral history collection about the federal Indian boarding school system is part of the Department's mission to honor its political, trust and legal responsibilities and commitments to Tribes," said Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement Tuesday.
"The U.S. government has never before collected the experiences of boarding school survivors, which Tribes have long advocated for to memorialize the experiences of their citizens who attended federal boarding schools. This is a significant step in our efforts to help communities heal and to tell the full story of America."
The Department has granted $3.7 million to the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) to interview former students and their descendants and will shortly announce dates, times and locations for those interviews. Interested parties can sign up on the NABS website:
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In this June 25, 2018 photo, a wooden sign advises motorists of the location of Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal lands in Massachusetts.
Homeless crisis prompts tribe to enact state of emergency
Inflation and the rising cost of housing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have exacted a heavy toll on the Mashpee Wampanoag in Massachusetts. The resulting rise in homelessness prompted tribal leadership last week to enact a state of emergency.
"We are hoping the state of emergency can help us to get more federal funds and grants to eventually structure our own tribal housing authority through the tribe's Housing Department," tribal chairman Brian Weeden said.
Last year, the tribe used nearly $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act and U.S. Housing and Urban Development funding to purchase a 19-room motel which it hopes can eventually serve as transitioning shelter for tribe members in need.
"But it's not enough," Weeden said.
The council also pledged to work with local, regional, state and federal agencies and organizations to look for other solutions to the housing crisis.
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Following the petition this past summer to reclaim the original "Redskins" name, the Commanders face a federal lawsuit from The Native Americans Guardian Association for their role in suppressing Native American history. pic.twitter.com/tQJ9mL1372
— Washington Commanders (@Washington2074) September 27, 2023
Commanders vs. 'Redskins': Nonprofit to take football team and Native advocacy group to court
A North Dakota-based nonprofit organization has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Commanders football team, its leaders and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).
The Native American Guardians Association (NAGA) lawsuit, filed in a U.S. district court in North Dakota, accuses the Commanders and its leaders, working in tandem with NCAI, of defaming NAGA as a "fake" group comprised of "fake Native Americans."
NAGA's website states: "Each member of our leadership team has some verified Native ancestry with the majority being enrolled tribal members."
NAGA in August sent a three-page letter to the owners and leaders of the Washington Commanders, calling on them to restore the team's former name, the "Washington Redskins" and "stop the further cancel culture" against Native Americans.
The group cites a 2016 Washington Post poll of 504 Native Americans, the majority of whom said they were not offended by the "Redskins" name.
In 2020 however, University of Michigan and University of California, Berkeley researchers polled 1,000 Native Americans on their perceptions of the "Redskins" name; 49% said they found it offensive.
The National Football League team dropped the "Redskins" name in 2020 and was known simply as the Washington Football Team before adopting the Commanders name in 2022.