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New law offers protection to abused Native American women

Lisa Brunner in Mahnomen County, Minn., home of the White Earth Indian Reservation. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

In WHITE EARTH NATION, Minn. — Lisa Brunner remembers the first time she saw her stepfather beat her mother. She was 4 years old, cowering under the table here on the Ojibwe reservation, when her stepfather grabbed his shotgun from the rack. She heard her mother scream, “No, David! No!”

“He starts beating my mother over the head and I could hear the sickening thud of the butt of the shotgun over her head,” Brunner said. “Then he put the gun back on the rack and called her a bitch. He slammed the bedroom door and sat down on the squeaky bed. And then I heard the thud-thud of his cowboy boots as he laid down, squeaking again, and he went to sleep.”

There were many more beatings over the years, Brunner said. Twenty years later, she said, she was brutally assaulted by her own husband on this same Indian reservation, an enormous swath of Minnesota prairie that has seen its share of sorrow for generations.

An estimated one in three Native American women are assaulted or raped in their lifetimes, and three out of five experience domestic violence. But in the cases of Brunner and her mother, the assailants were white, not Native American, and that would turn out to make all the difference.

President Obama, joined by Vice President Biden, members of women’s organizations, law enforcement officials, tribal leaders, survivors, advocates and members of Congress, signs the Violence Against Women Act in March. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)

For decades, when a Native American woman has been assaulted or raped by a man who is non-Indian, she has had little or no recourse. Under long-standing law in Indian country, reservations are sovereign nations with their own police departments and courts in charge of prosecuting crimes on tribal land. But Indian police have lacked the legal authority to arrest non-Indian men who commit acts of domestic violence against native women on reservations, and tribal courts have lacked the authority to prosecute the men.

Last year, Congress approved a law — promoted by the Obama administration — that for the first time will allow Indian tribes to prosecute certain crimes of domestic violence committed by non-Indians in Indian country. The Justice Department on Thursday announced it had chosen three tribes for a pilot project to assert the new authority.

While the law has been praised by tribal leaders, native women and the administration as a significant first step, it still falls short of protecting all Indian women from the epidemic of violence they face on tribal lands.

The new authority, which will not go into effect for most of the country’s 566 federally recognized Indian tribes until March 2015, covers domestic violence committed by non-Indian husbands and boyfriends, but it does not cover sexual assault or rape committed by non-Indians who are “strangers” to their victims. It also does not extend to native women in Alaska.

Proponents of the law acknowledge that it was drawn narrowly to win support in Congress, particularly from Republican lawmakers who argued that non-native suspects would not receive a fair trial in the tribal justice system.

For their part, native women say they have long been ill-served by state and federal law. U.S. attorneys, who already have large caseloads, are often hundreds of miles away from rural reservations. It can take hours or days for them to respond to allegations, if they respond at all, tribal leaders say. Native women also have to navigate a complex maze of legal jurisdictions.

“There are tribal communities where state police have no jurisdiction and federal law enforcement has jurisdiction but is distant and often unable to respond,” said Thomas J. Perrelli, a former associate attorney general who was one of the administration’s chief proponents of the amendment. “There are tribal communities where the federal government has no jurisdiction but state law enforcement, which has jurisdiction, does not intervene. And there are still other tribal lands where there is a dispute about who, if anyone, has jurisdiction. All of this has led to an inadequate response to the plight of many Native American women.”

More than 75 percent of residents on Indian reservations in the United States are non-Indians. In at least 86 percent of the reported cases of rape or sexual assault of American Indian and Alaska native women, both on and off reservations, the victims say their attackers were non-native men, according to the Justice Department.

Main Street in Mahnomen, Minn. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

Heavy snow slides off grain and seed storage units on the White Earth Nation reservation. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

‘Not enrolled’

The loophole in the American Indian justice system that effectively provides immunity to non-
Indians is the story of a patchwork of laws, treaties and Supreme Court decisions over generations.

At the root of the confusion about Indian jurisdiction is the historical tension over Indian land. As American settlers pushed Native Americans off their tribal lands and then renegotiated treaties to guarantee tribes a homeland, large areas of the reservations were opened for white families to homestead.

That migration led to the modern-day reservation, where Indians and non-
Indians often live side by side, one farm or ranch home belonging to a white family, the next one belonging to an Indian family. It is a recipe for conflict over who is in charge and who has legal jurisdiction over certain crimes.

“The public safety issues in Indian country are so complicated,” said Deputy Associate Attorney General Sam Hirsch, one of the Justice Department officials who focus on tribal justice issues. “No one would have ever designed a system from scratch to look like the system that has come down to us through the generations.”

Over the past 200 years, there have been dramatic swings in Indian-country jurisdiction and the extent of tribal powers.

In 1978, in a case widely known in Indian country as “Oliphant,” the Supreme Court held that Indian tribes had no legal jurisdiction to prosecute non-
Indians who committed crimes on reservations. Even a violent crime committed by a non-Indian husband against his Indian wife in their home on the reservation — as Brunner said happened to her on the White Earth Nation reservation — could not be prosecuted by the tribe.

The court said it was up to Congress to decide who had that authority.

“We are not unaware of the prevalence of non-Indian crime on today’s reservations, which the tribes forcefully argue requires the ability to try non-Indians,” the court said. “But these are considerations for Congress to weigh in deciding whether Indian tribes should finally be authorized to try non-Indians.”

Congress took no action for 35 years.

As a result, native women who were assaulted were often told there was nothing tribal police could do for them. If the perpetrator was white and — in the lingo of the tribes — “not enrolled” in the tribal nation, there would be no recourse.

“Over the years, what happened is that white men, non-native men, would go onto a Native American reservation and go hunting — rape, abuse and even murder a native woman, and there’s absolutely nothing anyone could do to them,” said Kimberly Norris Guerrero, an actress, tribal advocate and native Oklahoman who is Cherokee and Colville Indian. “They got off scot-free.”

In 2009, shortly after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was briefed by two FBI agents on the issue of violence on Indian reservations.

They told him about the soaring rates of assault and rape and the fact that on some reservations, the murder rate for native women is 10 times the national average.

“The way they phrased it was, if you are a young girl born on an Indian reservation, there’s a 1-in-3 chance or higher that you’re going to be abused during the course of your life,” Holder said in an interview. “I actually did not think the statistics were accurate. I remember asking, ‘check on those numbers.’ ”

Officials came back to Holder and told him the statistics were right: Native women experience the highest rates of assault of any group in the United States.

“The numbers are just staggering,” Holder said. “It’s deplorable. And it was at that point I said, this is an issue that we have to deal with. I am simply not going to accept the fact it is acceptable for women to be abused at the rates they are being abused on native lands.”

Measuring tape

Diane Millich, left, joins Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Deborah Parker, vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington state, at the bill-signing ceremony in March. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Diane Millich grew up on the Southern Ute Indian reservation, nestled in the mountain meadows of southwestern Colorado. When she was 26, she fell in love and married a non-Indian man who lived in a town just beyond the reservation.

Not long after they were married, Millich’s husband moved in with her and began to push and slap her, she said. The violence escalated, and the abuse, she said, became routine. She called the tribal police and La Plata County authorities many times but was told they had no jurisdiction in the case.

One time after her husband beat her, Millich said, he picked up the phone and called the sheriff to report the incident himself to show that he couldn’t be arrested, she said. He knew, she said, there was nothing the sheriff could do.

“After a year of abuse and more than 100 incidents of being slapped, kicked, punched and living in terror, I left for good,” Millich said.

The brutality, she said, increased after she filed for a divorce.

“Typically, when you look backwards at crimes of domestic violence, if less serious violence is not dealt with by the law enforcement system, it leads to more serious violence, which eventually can lead to homicide,” said Hirsch, the deputy associate attorney general.

One day when Millich was at work, she saw her ex-husband pull up in a red truck. He was carrying a 9mm gun.

“My ex-husband walked inside our office and told me, ‘You promised until death do us part, so death it shall be,’ ” Millich recalled. A co-worker saved Millich’s life by pushing her out of the way and taking a bullet in his shoulder.

It took hours to decide who had jurisdiction over the shooting.

Investigators at the scene had to use a measuring tape to determine where the gun was fired and where Millich’s colleague had been struck, and a map to figure out whether the state, federal government or tribe had jurisdiction.

The case ended up going to the closest district attorney. Because Millich’s husband had never been arrested or charged for domestic abuse on tribal land, he was treated as a first-time offender, Millich said, and after trying to flee across state lines was offered a plea of aggravated driving under revocation.

“It was like his attempt to shoot me and the shooting of my co-worker did not happen,” Millich said. “The tribe wanted to help me, but couldn’t because of the law. In the end, he was right. The law couldn’t touch him.”

Section 904

Last year, Millich and other American Indian women came to Washington to tell their stories to congressional leaders. They joined tribal leaders in lobbying for the passage of the 288-page reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which included language proposed by the Justice Department that for the first time would allow tribal courts to prosecute non-
Indians who assaulted native women on tribal lands. It would also allow the courts to issue and enforce protective orders, whether the perpetrator is Indian or non-Indian.

Opponents of the provision, known as Section 904, argued that non-native defendants would not be afforded a fair trial by American Indian tribes. In the case of Alaska, the Senate excluded Native Alaskan women because of especially complicated issues involving jurisdiction.

At a town hall meeting, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said that “under the laws of our land, you’ve got to have a jury that is a reflection of society as a whole.”

“On an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right?” Grassley said. “So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), another opponent, said the Violence Against Women Act was “being held hostage by a single provision that would take away fundamental constitutional rights for certain American citizens.”

The bill passed the Senate last February but was held up by House Republicans over Section 904. They argued that tribal courts were not equipped to take on the new responsibilities and non-Indian constituents would be deprived of their constitutional rights without being able to appeal to federal courts.

“When we talk about the constitutional rights, don’t women on tribal lands deserve their constitutional right of equal protection and not to be raped and battered and beaten and dragged back onto native lands because they know they can be raped with impunity?” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) argued on the floor.

Underlying the opposition, some congressmen said, was a fear of retribution by the tribes for the long history of mistreatment by white Americans.

With the support of Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member of the Chickasaw Nation, the House accepted the bill containing Section 904 on a vote of 229 to 196. On March 7, President Obama signed the bill with Millich, Holder and Native American advocates at his side.

The Justice Department has chosen three Indian tribes — the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Tulalip Tribes of Washington state and the Umatilla tribes of Oregon — to be the first in the nation to exercise their new criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic and dating violence.

“What we have done, I think, has been game-changing,” Holder said. “But there are still attitudes that have to be changed. There are still resources that have to be directed at the problem. There’s training that still needs to go on. We’re really only at the beginning stages of reversing what is a horrible situation.”

Lisa Brunner and her daughter, Faith Roy, fold clothes at home on the White Earth Indian reservation in Minnesota. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

‘Sliver of a Full Moon’

Last summer, several Native American survivors of domestic violence from around the country put on a play, “Sliver of a Full Moon,” in Albuquerque. The play documented the story of the abuse and rape of Native American women by non-Indians and the prolonged campaign to bring them justice.

Using the technique of traditional Indian storytelling, Mary Kathryn Nagle, a lawyer and member of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, wove together their emotional tales of abuse with the story of their fight to get Washington to pay attention.

Millich and Brunner played themselves, and actors played the roles of members of Congress, federal employees and tribal police officers who kept answering desperate phone calls from abused native women by saying over and over again, “We can’t do nothin’, ” “We don’t have jurisdiction,” and “He’s white and he ain’t enrolled.”

Lisa Brunner, seated, with her daughters Samantha, left, and Faith Roy. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

Brunner portrayed herself in a play that told the story of the abuse and rape of Native American women by non-Indians and the campaign to bring them justice. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

By that time, Brunner’s intergenerational story of violence and abuse had taken a painful turn. Her youngest daughter, 17, had been abducted by four white men who drove onto the reservation one summer night. One of them raped her, Brunner said.

It was the real-life version of author Louise Erdrich’s acclaimed fictional account of the rape of an Ojibwe woman by a non-Indian in her 2012 book, “The Round House.” In both the real and the unrelated fictional case, the new congressional authority would not give the tribe jurisdiction to arrest and prosecute the suspects, because they were not previously known to the victim.

Last week, inside her home on the frigid White Earth Nation, which was dotted by vast snowy cornfields and hundreds of frozen lakes, Brunner brought out a colorful watercolor she had painted of three native women standing in the woods under a glowing full moon. The painting was the inspiration for the title of Nagle’s play, she said, but it’s also a metaphor for the new law.

“We have always known that non-
Indians can come onto our lands and they can beat, rape and murder us and there is nothing we can do about it,” Brunner said. “Now, our tribal officers have jurisdiction for the first time to do something about certain crimes.”

“But,” she added, “it is just the first sliver of the full moon that we need to protect us.”

State stuck with bill when people ditch boats

State law requires owners of abandoned or derelict vessels to pay to remove or dispose of them, but since the state began a program to rid state waters of potentially dangerous vessels in 2003, vessel owners have repaid only about $28,000 of the total $8.3 million owed.

By Phuong Le, Associated Press

State law requires owners of abandoned or derelict vessels to pay the full costs of removing or disposing of the problem boats, but owners rarely do.

Since the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) began a program to rid state waters of potentially dangerous vessels in 2003, vessel owners have repaid only about $28,000 — or less than 1 percent — of the total $8.3 million owed in the past decade, according to agency records.

“The state does get stuck with the bill,” said Melissa Ferris, program manager of DNR’s derelict-vessels program. “It is frustrating,” she added. “We try and track them down. We do a fair amount of work.”

A few boat owners are now on payment plans for roughly $161,000. The state agency is actively billing nearly $2 million in recovery costs from others. They’ve also sent nearly $3.4 million through the collections process.

In some cases, the boat has changed hands so many times that it’s hard to prove who owns it, she said.

But even when the state has identified an owner, seeking repayment is difficult. In many cases, the agency hasn’t been able to collect money — and likely won’t — because owners didn’t have any assets to go after.

“If we find an owner with assets, we will get judgments against the owners, but the vast majority (of them) don’t have resources,” Ferris said.

After a rusty 140-foot former fishing boat burned and then sank in Penn Cove off Whidbey Island two years ago, DNR had it removed and scrapped and later billed the boat’s owner, Rory Westmoreland, for nearly $1.3 million in costs.

To date, Westmoreland hasn’t reimbursed the state for any of those costs, Ferris said.

Island County prosecutors last year charged Westmoreland with a misdemeanor for abandoning a derelict vessel. He failed to show up for an October hearing and a warrant was issued for his arrest, a spokeswoman with the prosecutor’s office said Thursday.

A listed number for Westmoreland could not be found.

The owner of the 180-foot New Star still owes the agency about $500,000, after DNR seized it early last year to prevent it from becoming a problem. The vessel had been docked at Port Ludlow, but the owner, George Marincin, was unable to carry out an initial plan to scrap it in Mexico.

Messages left at possible numbers for the owner were not immediately returned.

Junk vessels can pose public-safety and environmental risks because they can break up, sink or potentially leak oil, gas or other materials.

Last month, Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced criminal charges were filed against owners of two boats — 167-foot Helena Star and 57-foot historic tugboat Chickamauga — that sank in Puget Sound, spilling hundreds of gallons of oil and other pollutants.

Ferguson said the state wants to send a clear message that boat owners will be held accountable for environmental damage.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are trying to prevent derelict vessels from becoming a problem in the first place.

A bill introduced this year would create new penalties for failing to register a vessel and prohibit the sale of certain vessels that aren’t seaworthy unless they’re repaired or sold for scrap. House Bill 2457, which cleared a House committee last Tuesday, also imposes a fee on commercial vessels to fund the derelict vessels program.

“It speeds up the process of getting the boats out of our waters so they don’t sit around,” the prime sponsor, Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island, told lawmakers at a hearing last month.

Some who spoke testified against parts of the bill they said would put too much responsibility on private moorage facilities. “If a vessel comes in and ties up at your dock, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it,” said Warren Aakervik of Ballard Oil.

The bill is meant to build on legislation passed last year to address junk boats.

Under the law set to take July 1, owners of larger vessels more than 40 years old would be required to get a boat pre-inspection before transferring ownership. They also have to report that information to DNR.

The agency is also working on a pilot program to take back junk boats that owners no longer want.

The state has removed more than 500 boats since the program began in 2003. But there are now about 150 on the state’s watch list.

Federal oil-spill money often covers the costs of raising the ship and getting rid of any oil or other potential pollutants. But the expense of removing the vessel and scrapping it typically falls to local governments and the state.

Stalking Puget Sound Steelhead With Science

The crew of the research vessel Chasina gets ready to drop an acoustic telemetry receiver 300 feet down into Puget Sound. The device will record tagged steelhead as they swim out of their spawning rivers. | credit: Ashley Ahearn

By Ashley Ahearn, Earthfix; OPB

TACOMA, Wash. — You might call Barry Berejikian a steelhead stalker.

The government scientist’s pursuit of these anodramous trout has brought him to the deck of the Chasina, a research vessel that’s motoring through choppy gray waters of southern Puget Sound near the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

He’s here to lay the groundwork for an experiment that could explain why so few steelhead are completing their journey through Puget Sound and on to the Pacific Ocean.

Since 2007, Puget Sound steelhead have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Millions of dollars have been spent improving their habitat but the fish are not recovering.

And scientists can’t pinpoint why.

Berejikian aboard the research vessel Chasina. Credit: Ashley Ahearn

Berejikian is surrounded by keg-sized yellow buoys as he stands on the ship’s deck. These buoys are equipped with acoustic telemetry receivers and roped up to 500-pound concrete weights. The crew uses a crane to lift the devices over the side of the boat and drop eight of them 300 feet beneath the waves in a staggered line across Puget Sound.

Once they’re in place, the receiver buoys will float 20-30 feet above the bottom “listening” for fish. Later this spring, Berejikian plans to tag 300 juvenile steelhead in the Nisqually and Green rivers.

The floating receivers will record the tags when the fish pass by, enabling scientists to track individual fish as they make their way north through Puget Sound en route to the Pacific.

These arrays will be set up at four other points in Puget Sound, to chart how far the fish make it once they leave their spawning rivers.

“We want to detect every fish that comes through,” said Berejikian, who works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s kind of an aggressive approach but if you’re going to go to the trouble of doing the study you might as well go for it, so we’re going for it.”

The rivers in this part of the Puget Sound region are producing tens of thousands of juvenile steelhead every year. But scientists believe that only 20 percent of those fish complete their migratory route to the ocean. That has scientists curious about the locations of steelhead death “hot spots” as Berejikian calls them.

“We need to figure out why they’re dying and where they’re dying in order for us to work on management approaches to improving the situation,” Berejikian said.

If you’re a steelhead on your way out of Puget Sound this might be what comes to mind when Berejikian says “death hot spot”:

Harbor seal populations have boomed since the 1970s, prompting scientists to explore whether seal predation is contributing to steelhead mortality. Credit: Ashley Ahearn.

“They eat all salmon species, which would include chinook, coho, steelhead, chum and pink salmon,” said Steve Jeffries, who has studied harbor seals with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife since the 1970s. Jeffries added that there could be other animals preying on the steelhead, like sea lions, cormorants or harbor porpoise, whose populations are also on the rise in Puget Sound.

And of course there are other factors at play: Human population has increased in Puget Sound since the 1970s, as has development along rivers and coastlines.

But seals are still on the list of suspects and one thing’s for certain: there are more seals than there used to be.

Since the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, harbor seal populations in Puget Sound have risen from roughly 2,000 in the early 1970s, to 13,000 today.

In conjunction with Berejikian’s steelhead tagging, Jeffries plans to tag 12 harbor seals this year. The tags on the seals will track their movements. They’ll also act as receivers, like the floating buoys on the bottom of Puget Sound, recording if there are any tagged steelhead that come within range.

“If we find out that the seals are feeding over here and the steelhead smolts are swimming through the same area then you’ve got this special overlap and it’s more likely that there is a predation going on,” Jeffries explained.

And if the seals are eating the out-migrating juvenile steelhead?

“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Jeffries said. “Harbor seals, all marine mammals, are protected so any action that would come out of this would have to be vetted in a resource management arena.”

Jeffries said right now it’s too early to say if seals are a major contributor to steelhead mortality in Puget Sound. “It’s a long time in the future ‘til we would actually do anything proactive to reduce predation.”

Oglala Sioux vow to stop Keystone XL on the ground if Obama won’t say no

Chief Phil Lane Jr. (left) participates in the Vancouver signing of the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred From Tar Sands Projects. Photo courtesy of Phil Lane Jr.

By Erin Flegg, Source: Vancouver Observer

In the latest in a series of announcements escalating resistance to oil and gas development in North America, the Oglala Sioux nation and its allies have committed to stopping the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline on their territory if Obama approves the project.

In response to the US State Department’s environmental report that says Keystone wouldn’t increase the country’s carbon emissions Oglala Sioux president Bryan Brewer, along with organizations carbon emissions, Owe Aku and Protect the Sacred, released a statement declaring they will stand with the Lakota people to block the pipeline. The statement, seen by many as a significant step toward approval, sparked solidarity action across the US on Monday.

Moccasins on the Ground is a grassroots direct action training organization, and trainer Debra White Plum of the Lakota Sioux nation said the group has been working toward this moment, giving nations the skills they need to defend their land, for years now.

The training is available to anyone who invites the group onto their land, and it consists of four days of training in areas such as knowing your rights, blockading and self-defence, first aid and social media. White Plume said a large part of the impetus for offering the training is the size of the territory at risk. Tribes can be several hundred kilometres away from each other, often making quick help hard to come by.

“This way a community can do whatever they need to do when threatened and they’ll have the skills right here, and that’s really important out here where we live,” she said. “We want this non-violent, direct way that everybody engaging in across the country to be successful,” she said. “But if it’s not and if the final door is closed, then that’s why we’re doing the training.”

The organization has toured the United States and has received requests for training from several nations in Canada. She said the political process has left the people with little choice.

“Every door has been closed through this process. Court decisions have been made that favoured the corporations and there are a few cases here and there where the landowners are still asserting their rights under American law.” But if the government can’t be counted on to uphold its own laws, she said, there’s nothing to stop them violating indigenous treaty rights.

“As red nations people we have seen the federal government violate treaties clear to this day.”

The violation of the treaties—in the case of Keystone it’s primarily the Fort Laramie Treaty between the American government and the Oglala Sioux—is the key reason Phil Lane says it’s unfair to call direct action by indigenous people civil disobedience.

“It is not civil disobedience. This is simply acting out of an aboriginal legal order to stand up for what is right. It is standing up for an ancient aboriginal legal order that has never been extinguished.”

Just as the US and Canada and any other sovereign nation has the right to enter into legally binding treaties, so do First Nations. When a treaty such as the one between the Sioux and the American government is broken by one of the parties bound by it, Lane said a third legal party is required to resolve the situation. Because the governments of the United States and Canada are handling the administration of the treaties they themselves have broken, Lane said it’s impossible to expect justice from them.

What direct action resistance against Keystone looks like will ultimately be up to the Obama administration.

“What’s going to happen if he chooses to give in to the oil companies and their allies is he’s going to empower the rising of indigenous people everywhere on Mother Earth,” he said. “This will be another final violation people aren’t ready to take.”

Ottawa-based Idle No More organizer Clayton Thomas-Muller added that it’s crucial to remember that opposition to Keystone XL was initiated and pushed forward by indigenous people. And what’s more, that much of the progress made has been thanks to the indigenous peoples who have demanded recognition of their rights, namely consultation.

In December of 2011 at the annual White House Tribal Leaders Summit, indigenous leaders, including former president of the Rosebud Sioux nation Rodney Bordeaux, presented President Obama with Mother Earth Accord, a document stating indigenous opposition to Keystone XL. The document was endorsed by numerous nations from both sides of the border, NGOs, landowners and the NDP party. Thomas-Muller said it’s the only such document that was delivered into Obama’s hands directly.

“It was only through native rights-based framework being used by indigenous organizations and networks that provide that unparalleled access to the state department and White House,” he said.

He traveled to New York City on Monday night to speak at one of more than 300 actions across 44 states this week. He read a statement written by Debra White Plume and spoke on behalf of Idle No More in Canada.

So many people have been preparing for this moment, he said, and are now coming together for a final push.

“Moving forward, we have a very short timeline. Within the next couple of months we will see a variety of very direct messages like the one we heard from Bryan Brewer of Oglala Sioux nation.”

Frustration Surrounds New Tribal Labor Force Report

Rob Capriccioso, ICTMN

Is the 2013 Indian Population and Labor Force Report making anyone happy?

Tribal leaders and citizens have yet to say whether they are gaining anything useful from the report, which was issued in January after a long delay by the Obama Administration over apparent data collection problems.

The 151-page Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) document includes a lot of data. It generally says that there is a lot of poverty on many reservations, many Indians work for tribal, state or federal governments, and Native youth are especially having trouble finding jobs.

It says precious little about what is working for some tribes, and how other tribes can copy the success stories. And it provides no data on how federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) investments in tribal reservations in 2009 and beyond actually impacted Native employment, and whether there were lasting economic impacts that would call for greater federal investment in certain areas. Congressional leaders who lambasted the lateness of the report in summer 2012 had hoped that when it was eventually released that it would at least provide a little insight on how ARRA worked—or didn’t work—for struggling tribes.

With roots going back to 1982, the report is supposed to be a tool for both tribes and Congress, depicting the labor and employment landscape across a wide range of tribes facing a multitude of economic situations.

Congressional supporters of the rationale for the report say that tribes could ideally use the data, which is supposed to be issued every two years, to make fact-based quantitative arguments for improved federal and other assistance.

But that ideal situation is not happening, says Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, and he does not think it is likely to happen given the new data in the current report.

“The 2013 Indian Population and Labor Force Report recently released by the Bureau of Indian Affairs is far from a helpful document,” Young tells Indian Country Today Media Network. “In reality, this document has more potential to cause harm than good. What was published is essentially a reprint of unhelpful and outdated U.S. Census Bureau data, all of which was publically available prior to the release of the report.”   Young notes the failings of Census Bureau data collection, including the miscounting and undercounting of thousands of Alaska Natives and American Indians, are already well known.

“From what I’ve seen, the report contains huge gaps in data for many parts of Indian country and relies heavily on making estimates about tribes’ economic circumstances,” Young adds. “Additionally, the report’s labor and employment statistics are not accurate metrics for providing a realistic picture of the actual circumstances in Native communities.”   Young believes that Alaska Native and American Indian communities will actually suffer if agencies use this report for making policy decisions or determining how best to allocate federal resources meant to support programs in Indian country.

Young’s view is representative of other Congress members focused on Indian affairs who want the report to be doing more than the current one. Retired Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) echoed Young’s concerns in July 2012 when the report was gaining attention for being long overdue. “It is crucial to have an accurate record of employment statistics in order to best assess need and to appropriate financial resources to tribes,” Akaka then said. “Understanding the current economic outlook will better help us to put forth legislation that will increase economic development and job creation in Indian country.”

One of the reasons the BIA cited for the long delay surrounding the current report – the last of which highlighted 2005 tribal data—is that they wanted it to be better than previous ones. “When we are able to release something, I am confident that it will be far more accurate than any report we’ve ever released before on this issue,” Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn told ICTMN in August 2013 when asked why the report still had not been released.
The new report may be more accurate, but it is still a source of frustration, BIA leadership concedes.

“Our economist did the best he could with imperfect data,” Washburn says. “We are neither the U.S. Census Bureau, nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those agencies both exist and we do not believe Indian country wants us to become them. We are not a statistical agency. Our primary mission is to provide services to tribes.”

Washburn, hearing the critiques of Young, says it was a tough situation. “We hired [the economist] to help Indian Affairs make more accurate (and therefore hopefully more compelling) budget submissions to Congress,” he says. “However, the economist was hijacked from this equally important task and reassigned to help with the labor force and population report in hopes of making it more accurate than in the past.”

On why the ARRA tribal outlook was not covered in the report, Washburn cites the limited resources of his agency. “The fact is that we had only one economist working on this, and I believe that it would have taken a battery of economists to produce an analysis of all the effects of ARRA,”’ he says. “It was hard enough simply trying to gather the labor and population data for 566 tribes in twelve BIA regions. Moreover, the requirement for the report was enacted with the 477 law, many years before ARRA. The data was not intended to show anything about ARRA. The report simply has no relation to ARRA.”

Washburn also suggests that Congress should re-evaluate whether it is wise to have the BIA and, in turn, tribes shoulder the costs of this biannual report. “A tribal administrator with the Citizen Band of Potawatomi told me in a public meeting that it would cost her tribe $500,000 to do everything the tribe needs to do to accurately report labor and employment data for this report,” he says. “That is one out of 566 tribes. I do not feel that the 477 law was intended to impose such costs on tribes.

Washburn also says he doubts that Congress intended the BIA to bear such costs, but he adds that his agency plans to issue the next report on time, in accordance with the law.

Cladoosby Hopes to Initiate Repatriation Discussion With France

Courtesy Brian CladoosbySwinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby introduces President Obama as the "first American Indian president" of the U.S., at the 2012 White House Tribal Nations Conference. Cladoosby and his wife will be the Obamas' guests at the White House State Dinner for French President Francois Hollande, February 11. — Courtesy Brian Cladoosby
Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby introduces President Obama as the “first American Indian president” of the U.S., at the 2012 White House Tribal Nations Conference. Cladoosby and his wife will be the Obamas’ guests at the White House State Dinner for French President Francois Hollande, February 11.

Richard Walker, Indian Country Today Media Network

National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby doesn’t expect he’ll have more than an opportunity to shake the hand of French President Francois Hollande at a White House state dinner February 11.

But he hopes that introduction will open the door to negotiation of an agreement for the repatriation of Native American objects in French museums.

Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Tribe, and his wife Nina were invited by President Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama to the state dinner being held in honor of the French president.

During the French president’s visit to the U.S., Obama and Hollande “will discuss opportunities to further strengthen the U.S.-France security and economic partnership,” Obama said in a statement posted on www.whitehouse.gov.

“Michelle and I look forward to welcoming President Hollande … on a state visit to the United States,” Obama said.

“The United States and France are close friends and allies, including through NATO, and our countries have worked together to support democracy, liberty, and freedom at home and abroad for more than two centuries.”

The state dinner comes two months after a French judge’s decision to allow an auction house in Paris to sell 24 sacred Native American artifacts, despite the protests of the Hopi Nation, the U.S. Embassy, and indigenous civil rights organization Survival International.

The Annenberg Foundation intervened, submitting a winning bid of $530,000 U.S. for the sole purpose of returning the objects to their rightful owners – 21 items belong to the Hopi Nation, three to the San Carlos Apache.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act gives indigenous nations in the U.S. a way to reclaim funerary objects and ceremonial items from federal agencies and museums in the United States. The law, however, does not apply to items held internationally.

Christopher Marinello, executive director and general counsel of Art Loss Register London, the world’s largest private database of lost and stolen art, antiques and collectables, told ICTMN in April 2013 that the Hopi and Apache objects should have been repatriated under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. France ratified the convention in 1997.

According to the convention, “the [Hopi and Apache] pieces should have been pulled off, parties should have had a discussion to see which pieces could be sold, which were not genuine, what were the moral claims, what was important to the tribe, what is the compensation,” Marinello told ICTMN.

Marinello said there are no international agreements specifically addressing Native American artifacts, and said “it is something that the Americans should be convening and discussing because the laws in the USA protecting those Native artifacts have no weight overseas.”

That’s what Cladoosby hopes to initiate, noting, “We want to ensure our most sacred items are treated the same way” as those covered by other repatriation conventions.

Three Tribes to Begin Prosecuting Non-Indian Domestic Violence Offenders

Rob Capriccioso, ICTMN

Three pilot tribes have been chosen by the Obama Administration to take early advantage of Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) provisions passed by Congress last year that allow tribes to prosecute non-Indian offenders for domestic violence offenses on reservations.

The Justice Department announced February 6 that the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon will be the first in the nation to be able to exercise criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic and dating violence, regardless of the defendant’s Indian or non-Indian status, under the 2013 VAWA law.

“Our actions today mark a historic turning point,” Associate Attorney General Tony West said in a press release announcing the decision. “We believe that by certifying certain tribes to exercise jurisdiction over these crimes, we will help decrease domestic and dating violence in Indian country, strengthen tribal capacity to administer justice and control crime, and ensure that perpetrators of sexual violence are held accountable for their criminal behavior.”

Beyond this pilot required by Congress, the law allows increased tribal jurisdiction to go into effect for all tribes in the lower 48 states in March 2015. Tribes at that time will not need Justice Department approval if they meet provisions of the law required for enhanced jurisdiction over domestic and dating violence cases.

Justice officials said West chose the three tribes for pilot participation because their tribal court systems have adequate safeguards in place to fully protect defendants’ rights under the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. They further said the decision to choose the three tribes were based on reviews of application questionnaires submitted by the tribes in December 2013, along with excerpts of tribal laws and policies.

“The Tulalip Tribes is honored to be among those chosen for the Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction pilot program,” Tulalip Chairman Mel Sheldon said in a press release. “Getting justice for our tribal members, where it concerns domestic and intimate partner violence, has been a long time coming.”

“This is very positive news for tribes,” added Troy Eid, the recent chair of the Tribal Law and Order Commission who is scheduled to testify on VAWA and other tribal justice issues before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs February 12. “It’s wonderful to see that three were approved, and the hope is that the other tribes that submitted applications are getting strong assistance from the Department of Justice to get up and running very soon.”

Six tribes in total have applied so far to participate in the pilot project, according to the National Congress of American Indians. The three that applied that that were not approved on February 6 are still under review, said Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for Justice; they are the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, the Penobscot Indian Nation, and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. Tribal justice advocates say Justice has shown a willingness to work with the tribes to help them be able to take part in the law, and Hornbuckle said tribes may submit applications to participate in the pilot project any time before March 7, 2015. Some tribes were opposed to the pilot portion of the law, believing they should have been given immediate increased jurisdiction upon passage of the law, but the pilot was a compromise between Senate and House legislators added into the law in 2013 so that it could gain enough support to be approved by both chambers.

Once the full law goes into effect in 2015, Eid predicts many people will be asking why tribes were not trusted for so long. “The idea that local governments should have jurisdiction over these kinds of offenses is a basic bedrock principle of the American justice system,” he says. “There is no reason for tribes not to have this local control, as do all other local communities.”

Before the 1978 Supreme Court decision opinion in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, federally recognized tribes were widely able to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants. Since that decision, which severely limited tribal sovereignty, tribes and the federal government have documented large amounts of domestic violence and dating violence committed by non-Indian abusers, yet tribes have not been able to prosecute these offenders, and the federal government has been slow to curb the problem with its own justice system.

In conjunction with the announcement, administration officials cited on the White House blog a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found 46 percent of Native American women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

Tribal leaders and advocates spent much of 2012 and 2013 pushing for tribal jurisdictional provisions to be restored in the VAWA reauthorization against intense Republican opposition. After a prolonged battle in Congress, they were finally successful when the reauthorization was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2013.

“We lift our hands to all those who fought for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, including our own Tulalip Tribes councilwoman, Deborah Parker,” Sheldon added.

Alaska Natives, meanwhile, are currently waging a campaign for passage of a congressional VAWA fix that would give their tribal communities jurisdiction over similar domestic and dating offenses. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) have introduced legislation called the Safe Families and Communities Act, which does not go nearly as far as the 2013 VAWA law in increasing tribal jurisdiction over non-Indian domestic violence and dating offenders.

Alaska Natives are pressuring Begich, who is in a close re-election race, to support a congressional fix that will treat Alaska Native communities the same as tribes in the rest of the country on jurisdictional matters. Alaska Native tribes make up 40 percent of all federally recognized tribes.

Tulalip artist James Madison remains true to his heritage

Dan Bates / The HeraldArtist James Madison carves amazing artwork, depicting his ancestral tribal culture, and stories passed down through the ages. — Dan Bates / The Herald
Artist James Madison carves amazing artwork, depicting his ancestral tribal culture, and stories passed down through the ages.

By Gale Fiege, The Herald

Computers, scanners and other bits of high tech play a part in what is produced at the studio of famed Tulalip Tribes artist James Madison.

At the heart of his carvings, paintings, glass and metal sculptures, however, is what Madison learned as a boy sitting at his grandfather’s kitchen table — the way to hold an adze, respect for Coast Salish and Tlingit cultural traditions, a good work ethic and an appreciation for beauty.

“Everything my grandpa knew, he taught me and my cousin, Steven. He was grooming us to carry on,” said Madison, now 40. “He taught us the stories and their messages, and how to carve. It was like learning to walk. It was just something that happened naturally.”

Madison’s artwork is displayed locally and throughout the state and country. It even has been featured on the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Named Snohomish County’s 2013 Artist of the Year by the Schack Arts Center, Madison is busy this week putting up a show at the Russell Day Gallery at Everett Community College.

“Generations 2,” which includes work by Madison, his grandfather, father, uncle, cousin and young sons, opens Feb. 10, with a reception set for 6 p.m. Feb. 13 at the college gallery. It will be exhibited through March 14. A previous show, “Generations,” also included artwork by family members.

“The show pays respect to the people who taught me and gave me the tools I use today,” Madison said.

Madison’s sculptural work can be seen on Colby Avenue in downtown Everett, on the community college campus, on the Tulalip reservation and in the form of a bronze husky in front of the University of Washington football stadium.

“That sculpture was important to me because football has always been a part of my life, too,” he said.

One of Madison’s major works is the 24-foot story pole in the hotel lobby at the Tulalip Resort and Casino. His sculptures also can be seen at the Hibulb Cultural Center, in Cabela’s at the Tulalip shopping mall, at Lighthouse Park in Mukilteo, Kayak Point County Park, Providence hospital, the Burke Museum and in the cities of Stanwood, Marysville, Shoreline, Whistler and New York.

Along with learning traditional arts, Madison was still a child when his father was attending art school and learning about abstract painting.

“Dad gave me the fine arts side,” Madison said. “It gave me the means to take what I do and give it a modern twist.”

After graduating from Everett High School and Everett Community College, Madison earned a degree in fine arts from the University of Washington.

“I am in a position now to publicly express our history to non-Indians, so they can know who we are,” Madison said. “I am trying to do my best to keep our culture alive. I bring my sons with me as much as I can, so they can learn in the same manner I did.”

Among other things, Madison currently is working on another story pole. It is being carved from the same 998-year-old, 135-foot cedar log — a blow-down from the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest — that was used for the story pole at the Tulalip Resort.

Looking around his warehouse-sized studio, Madison said sometimes his success feels “surreal.”

“This is a dream come true for all of us,” he said, motioning to friends and relatives working nearby.

“Being named artist of the year last February, at age 39, made me proud of all of our hard work. It was an accolade that gave me satisfaction and made me feel that it is possible to do anything.

“I push myself because that is how I was raised. And the more I do, the more I can acknowledge my people and my family.”

“Generations 2” also will include the work of the late Frank Madison Sr., Steve Madison, Frank Madison, Steven Madison and James Madison’s sons, Jayden, 8, and Jevin, 6.

The Russell Day Gallery, 2000 Tower St., is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, noon to 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fridays.

Tulalip Tribes One of Three Tribes Nationwide to Implement Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction Under VAWA 2013

Pilot Projects Allow Tribal Prosecution of Non-Indian Abusers

For the First Time in More Than Three Decades

Press Release, Office of Public Affairs Tulalip Tribes

Tulalip, WA—February 6, 2014–The Tulalip Tribes will be one of three American Indian tribes in the nation to exercise special jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic and dating violence, regardless of the defendant’s Indian or non-Indian status, under a pilot project authorized by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA 2013). The two other tribes are the Umatilla in Oregon and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona.

“The Tulalip Tribes is honored to be among those chosen for the Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction (SDVCJ) pilot program. Getting justice for our tribal members, where it concerns domestic and intimate partner violence, has been a long time coming,” said Tulalip Chairman Mel Sheldon. “Together, with our fellow Tribal nations, we celebrate the fact that the reauthorized VAWA of 2013 has recognized our inherent legal jurisdiction to bring all perpetrators of domestic violence against our members, on our lands, to justice. We lift our hands to all those who fought for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, including our own Tulalip Tribes councilwoman, Deborah Parker.”

“The Tulalip Tribes has shown great leadership with a robust and comprehensive justice system,” said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan. “This special criminal jurisdiction will translate into better protection for members of the tribal community and their families, and ensure that all offenders are appropriately prosecuted and sanctioned in tribal court. I am grateful for the strong leadership exercised by the Tulalips, particularly Chairman Mel Sheldon, Councilmember Deborah Parker and Judge Theresa Pouley. We look forward to continuing our important work with the Tulalips.”

Deborah Parker, Vice Chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes, worked alongside Senator Patty Murray, and many others, to advocate for the new tribal provisions included in VAWA 2013. “It’s amazing to be at this time and place and to witness such a critical change in law. Justice will now be served because we have the necessary legal tools to prosecute those who perpetrate against our tribal members on our reservation, regardless of race, religion or affiliation,“ she said.

Although the provisions authorizing the special jurisdiction take effect generally in March 2015, the law also gives the Attorney General discretion to grant a tribe’s request to exercise the jurisdiction earlier, through a voluntary pilot project. The authority to approve such requests has been delegated to Associate Attorney General Tony West. Associate Attorney General West today congratulated tribal leaders of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon, on this historic achievement in letters to the three tribes.

“This is just the latest step forward in this administration’s historic efforts to address the public safety crisis in Indian country. Every day, we’re working hard to strengthen partnerships with tribal leaders and confront shared challenges – particularly when it comes to protecting Indian women and girls from the shocking and unacceptably high rates of violence they too often face,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “With the important new tools provided by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, these critical pilot projects will facilitate the first tribal prosecutions of non-Indian perpetrators in recent times. This represents a significant victory for public safety and the rule of law, and a momentous step forward for tribal sovereignty and self-determination.”

“The old jurisdictional scheme failed to adequately protect the public – particularly native women – with too many crimes going unprosecuted and unpunished amidst escalating violence in Indian Country,” stated Associate Attorney General West. “Our actions today mark an historic turning point. We believe that by certifying certain tribes to exercise jurisdiction over these crimes, we will help decrease domestic and dating violence in Indian Country, strengthen tribal capacity to administer justice and control crime, and ensure that perpetrators of sexual violence are held accountable for their criminal behavior.”

Since the Supreme Court’s 1978 opinion in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, tribes have been prohibited from exercising criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants. This included domestic violence and dating violence committed by non-Indian abusers against their Indian spouses, intimate partners and dating partners. Even a violent crime committed by a non-Indian husband against his Indian wife, in the presence of her Indian children, in their home on the Indian reservation, could not be prosecuted by the tribe. In granting the pilot project requests of the Tulalip, Pascua Yaqui, and Umatilla tribes today, the United States is recognizing and affirming the tribes’ inherent power to exercise “special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction” (SDVCJ) over all persons, regardless of their Indian or non-Indian status.

As described in the Department of Justice’s Final Notice on the pilot project, today’s decisions are based on a diligent, detailed review of application questionnaires submitted by the tribes in December 2013, along with excerpts of tribal laws, rules, and policies, and other relevant information. That review, conducted in close coordination with the Department of the Interior and after formal consultation with affected Indian tribes, led the Justice Department to determine that the criminal justice system in the Tulalip, Pascua Yaqui, and Umatilla tribes have adequate safeguards in place to fully protect defendants’ rights under the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended by VAWA 2013.

The Department of Justice is posting notices of the pilot project designation on the Tribal Justice and Safety Web site (www.justice.gov/tribal/) and in the Federal Register. In addition, each tribe’s application questionnaire and related tribal laws, rules, and policies will be posted on the Web site. These materials will serve as a resource for those tribes that may also wish to participate in the pilot project or to commence exercising SDVCJ in March 2015 or later, after the pilot project has concluded.

For more information on VAWA 2013, please visit www.justice.gov/tribal/vawa-tribal.html. Media inquires contact Francesca Hillery, Office of Public Affairs Tulalip Tribes, (360) 913.2646.

About the Tulalip Tribes

The Tulalip Tribes are the successors in interest to the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish and other tribes and bands signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. The 22,000-acre Tulalip Indian Reservation is located north of Seattle in Snohomish County, Washington. Tribal government provides membership with health and dental clinics, family and senior housing, human services, utilities, police and courts, childcare, and higher education assistance. The Tribe maintains extensive environmental preservation and restoration programs to protect the Snohomish region’s rich natural resources, which includes marine waters, tidelands, fresh water rivers and lakes, wetlands and forests both on and off the reservation. Developable land and an economic development zone along the I-5 corridor provide revenue for tribal services. This economic development is managed through Quil Ceda Village, the first tribally chartered city in the United States, providing significant contributions and benefits tribal members and the surrounding communities. The Tribes have approximately 4,400 members. For more information, visit www.tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.

How Will Farm Bill & Food Stamp Cuts Impact Indian Country?

Rob Capriccioso, ICTMN

When the federal government shut down last fall, it wasn’t just monuments and national parks that closed as a result. Funding streams for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were also reduced, and, in turn, Indian programs meant to feed hungry families were stretched thin.

“It was a canary in the coal mine for what we’re going to see next,” says Janie Simms Hipp, director of the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University of Arkansas School of Law, who predicts that the new cuts by Congress to SNAP will be difficult for many Native American families to bear.

On February 4, the Senate passed a farm bill by a vote of 68 – 32 that calls for $8 billion in cuts to the SNAP food-stamp program over the next decade; the Senate vote followed a 251-166 affirmative vote on the same bill in the House January 29. It’s a smaller cut than the $40 billion House Republicans passed last September, but still big enough to have Indian food and nutrition specialists worried about the net result.

According to federal statistics, SNAP in 2008 served an average of 540,000 low-income people who identified as American Indian/Alaska Native alone and 260,000 who identified as American Indian/Alaska Native and White per month. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) says that 20 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native households receive food stamps.

Tod Roberson, president of the National Association of Food Distribution Programs on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), says that the reduced federal funding resulting from the October shutdown, combined with new federal rules affecting FDPIR that went into effect around the same time, led to an increase in participation at nearly every tribal FDPIR site. FDPIR is a federal program that provides U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) foods through tribes to low-income Indian country-based households; it served approximately 80,000 individuals per month in fiscal year 2011, according to administrative data. Over 275 tribes currently participate in FDPIR, but there are 566 federally recognized tribes, so many tribal citizens don’t have access.

“One tribe has already seen an additional 1,000 plus new participants,” Roberson says. “The monthly participation levels are being closely monitored in comparison to past trends.”

If the immediate past is prologue, Roberson says it is “extremely plausible that additional resources will be needed” for FDPIR as a result of the SNAP cuts, which are expected to soon be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
The hope of many tribal advocates is that the FDPIR program can pick up the slack for most Indian families, but whether there are enough resources for that to happen is unknown right now.

“We’re going to see a ripple,” says Hipp, who founded the USDA’s Office of Tribal Relations before joining the University of Arkansas in 2013. “If you take the lesson of the shutdown as an example of what could happen upon full implantation of cuts to SNAP, we (tribes and tribal citizens) really need to be prepared.”

On another worrisome note beyond food stamps, tribal leaders with the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes are lamenting that the farm bill includes language inserted by Rep. Frank Lewis (R-Oklahoma) that continue to keep traditional tribal homelands away from the tribe. The tribe unsuccessfully called on Congress to remove the language, which was first inserted in 2002, once more in 2008, and now again in 2014.

Alongside the negatives, there are a few new provisions in the farm bill that are cause for celebration in Indian country. One of these provisions requires

a feasibility study from the Secretary of Agriculture on the tribal administration of federal food assistance programs. “FDPIR is already managed by tribes [and] FDPIR has proven that tribes can effectively run these programs and in most if not all cases do so with greater attention to the needs on the ground of their people,” Hipp says of the provision. “I’m all in favor of turning over these programs to be run by tribes for the benefit and service to their people.”

The farm bill also creates a new demonstration project for the FDPIR to include traditional and locally grown foods by Native farmers, ranchers, and producers. “This shows that Congress is acknowledging that local, traditional foods continue to be important to our people,” says Hipp, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.

Both the feasibility study and the demonstration project still need to receive funding from congressional appropriators, but tribal advocates, including those at NCAI, say the authorizing language is a positive – and long fought for – first step.

For both provisions to be successful, Hipp says that the input of FDPIR tribal managers and other Indian food and agricultural experts will be important. “Such a study and demonstration project must be handled in a way and by entities that truly understand Indian country agriculture from farm to fork, and tribal governments must be involved as they have the authority to set policy within their jurisdictional borders that would form the ongoing cradle for local and traditional food production, “ she says. “The study should not be done by an entity without that intimate level of knowledge, or we won’t uncover all the issues that should be included in a comprehensive report on the topic.”

A third new provision of the farm bill related to Indian country allows for the use of traditional foods in public food services programs such as schools, elder care facilities, and hospitals and makes tribes explicitly eligible for Soil and Water Conservation Act Programs.

While the pro-Indian provisions in the final legislation are exciting to advocates like Hipp, the cuts are still tough to swallow. “I’m not excited about any cuts to hunger programs—we have a whole bunch of hungry people,” she says. “But at the end of the day I’m also a student of agriculture policy, and farm bills have always been an exercise in compromise.”