Supreme Court Poised to Screw Over Indians Yet Again
Try to contain your shock. The stakes in this case (pardon the gaming metaphor) are much higher than just Rhode Island. If the Indian Reorganization Act (the basis for land-into-trust applications) is held to apply only to tribes that were federally recognized as of 1934, then all the tribes who struggled for decades to obtain recognition after that year, and those who are still struggling, will have practically no chance to obtain a viable, economically-sustainable land base, particularly in light of the Oneida case, where the courts ruled that even though it was undisputed that Oneida land was illegally stolen by the State of New York, the only way they could get it back was through land-into-trust.
Labels: law, Native American, Oneida, Supreme Court
posted by The Local Crank | 9:50 PM
2 Comments:
I saw this a few weeks ago when it was announced, and just felt my heart fall. It could have a huge impact on Eastern and California tribes, and just when we were making inroads on sovereignty and recognition.
So depressing. You know this SCOTUS will screw us over, once again.
Yeah, it's the old Catch-22; you can't do land into trust unless the Feds "recognized" your tribe before 1934, but before 1934 there was no mechanism to force the Feds to recognize any tribe. Kind of like the Oneida case where the Courts said the Oneidas waited too long to sue, even though Indians weren't even recognized as having standing to sue until at least the Standing Bear case. We can't win for losing.
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