Tribes

The issue is whether a federal law that seeks to place Native American foster children in Native American homes is constitutional. The case could turn on whether the justices see tribes as racial groups or sovereign nations. The little girl who will soon be known by the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court as Y.R.J. is now 4 years old. For much of her short life she has been living with Dr. Jennifer Brackeen and Chad Brackeen, a suburban Texas couple fighting with the Navajo Nation to adopt her. Y.R.J.’s birth mother is Navajo. The Brackeens are white. On [...]

The High Court is set to hear a case that will affect thousands of Native kids. Is it qualified to judge? On Nov. 9, the eyes of Indian Country will once again turn toward the nation’s capital, where the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a law passed in 1978 that enshrines tribal governments’ right to oversee foster care placements in cases involving Native children. The bill followed the damage done by the U.S. boarding school system and extractive adoption practices, which stripped Native youth of their culture and removed them from their communities. [...]

On September 20, the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples (SCIP) held an oversight hearing entitled “Examining Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta: The Implications of the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Tribal Sovereignty.” Mary Kathryn Nagle, Counsel to NIWRC, testified at the hearing about the negative impact the Castro-Huerta ruling has on the safety of Native women, children, and communities. Watch the hearing here. On September 26, the US Department of Justice hosted a Tribal consultation on the Castro-Huerta decision.

The Department of Justice has selected an additional 16 federally recognized Tribes to participate in the continued expansion of the Tribal Access Program for National Crime Information (TAP), a program that provides Tribal governments with means to access, enter and exchange data with national crime information systems, including those maintained by the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division. The program provides training as well as software and biometric/biographic kiosk workstations to process fingerprints, take mugshots, and submit information to CJIS systems. With these additional Tribes, there are now 123 federally recognized Tribes participating in TAP. Read more...

In northern Arizona and southern Utah, shared experiences of the boarding school round-ups live with survivors to this day. By By Alastair Lee Bitsóí, High Country News. They told Willie Grayeyes (Diné) to sleep in his clothes — to not even take off his black shoes. At any moment, the Tuba City Boarding School staff members said, the 7-year-old would be called upon. Not knowing what that meant, he obeyed, and, in the middle of the night, they woke him. Staffers drove Grayeyes 11 miles to the junction of U.S. Highway 89 and Highway 160 near Tuba City, Arizona, in the [...]

Application Due Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2022. The purpose of these cooperative agreements is to provide resources to improve response to 988 contacts (including calls, chats, and texts) originating in Tribal communities and/or activated by American Indians/Alaskan Natives. This program aims to: (1) ensure American Indians/Alaskan Natives have access to culturally competent, trained 988 crisis center support; (2) improve integration and support of 988 crisis centers, Tribal nations, and Tribal organizations to ensure there is navigation and follow-up care; and (3) facilitate collaborations with Tribal, state and territory health providers, Urban Indian Organizations, law enforcement, and other first responders in a [...]

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe is suing the federal government after enduring years of unaddressed violent crime and missing tribal members. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, names the United States, the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and several leading officials within those agencies as plaintiffs. The tribe is claiming the federal government has breached its obligation to keep Northern Cheyenne residents on the reservation safe, and demands that the DOI and BIA fulfill those obligations. "Public safety on-reservation is severely compromised due to the lack of meaningful BIA law enforcement presence [...]