Tribal communities risk losing local libraries and the history they hold amid DOGE cuts

NBC News

11-05-2025

Inside a 90-square-mile stretch of rural reservation between the eastern Jemez Mountains and the banks of the Rio Grande River sits the Santa Clara Pueblo Community Library, an anchor for the northern New Mexico tribe it serves.
Internet service across the Santa Clara Pueblo reservation is sparse, the tribe's governor, James Naranjo, told NBC News, and resources to expand access to technology and literacy programs for its 1,700 members are already stretched thin.
Naranjo said the library relies on federal grant money to build bridges between the tribe and otherwise out-of-reach services — grants that could be on the chopping block thanks to cuts by the Trump administration.
The Pueblo's was one of more than a hundred libraries on federally recognized tribal lands across the country that were notified by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) — a small federal agency responsible for funding local libraries and museums across the country — that their congressionally appropriated grant had been terminated midcycle, according to an IMLS spokesperson.
'IMLS has determined that your grant is unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency's priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States and the IMLS Program,' one letter, obtained by NBC News from a tribal grant writer who received it, said. 'IMLS is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda.'
The letter was signed by Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, whom President Donald Trump appointed as acting director of the IMLS in March. Days before Sonderling's appointment, Trump signed an executive order directing the agency, and six others, to be eliminated to the 'maximum extent consistent with applicable law.' Only Congress holds the legal authority to shut down the agency.
Trump's March 14 order instructed the IMLS — which guarantees states and sovereign tribes can provide the public with free access to myriad services like early literacy resources, Braille books, internet access and STEM and cultural programs — to cease all operations, slash staff and provide a report to the Office of Management and Budget detailing proof of compliance.
Within days, the Department of Government Efficiency descended upon the 75-person IMLS staff. All but a dozen were placed on administrative leave. Then, in early April, Sonderling terminated all IMLS grants except for those missed by human error, an IMLS spokesperson told NBC News.
The spokesperson said the grants were terminated for evaluation purposes, and that some of them would be reinstated if they align with the administration's priorities, but declined to provide details on the timeline and criteria.
The sweeping grant cancellations were part of a broader effort by Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to drastically reduce the scope of federal spending by freezing funds and ordering mass layoffs across a number of agencies, including the Department of Education, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest union representing library employees, sued Sonderling, Trump and DOGE to stop the dismantling of the IMLS last month.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon granted a temporary restraining order last week that bars the Trump administration from making further cuts to IMLS staff and grants.
An injunction granted Tuesday in a separate lawsuit brought by 21 state attorneys general against the Trump administration cemented that the IMLS cannot be downsized any further, but as litigation continues ahead of a final ruling, the future of the grants is still up in the air. And in his 2026 budget outline, Trump proposed defunding the IMLS entirely.
Tribal leaders worry that it could mean the end of library services their constituents rely on, and the beginning of a very long fight.
'This is something that's personal to me,' said American Library Association President Cindy Hohl, a member of the Santee Sioux Nation of South Dakota, which said it had its Native American Basic Grant canceled.
'As we continue to look at what is happening in the current government, we need to advocate for the needs of our sovereign nations,' Hohl said. 'We need to hold the federal government accountable to upholding their trust responsibility.'
'Tribal libraries and tribal communities have specific needs to preserve their culture, their language, their heritage, and to live as traditional people in our traditional communities,' Hohl added.
Among the initial cuts were four grant programs designed specifically to support library and museum services in rural Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities.
Thousands of miles from New Mexico, the only library within miles of the 68-person Igiugig Village tribe in southwestern Alaska was stripped of the funding it relies on to purchase books and sustain its summer reading program. In Juneau, funding for a project dedicated to digitizing and preserving the history of Native Alaska was slashed. Across Indian Country, the federal dollars that funded tribal librarian and coordinator salaries have run dry, putting the jobs and the programs they run in jeopardy.
'It's unfortunate that these cuts are nationwide, and it's hurting our children,' Naranjo said. 'You know, it's hurting our unborn. It's hurting our community in general. Yeah, $10,000 might be a small amount to others, but it's a huge amount to us.'
The Santa Clara Pueblo received $10,000 last year through the Native American Library Services Basic Grants program, which is designed to provide small, hard-to-reach Native American and Indigenous communities with access to funding that addresses the individual needs of each tribe. In the absence of the grants they were promised, Naranjo and tribal leaders across the country may have to make difficult decisions to keep their local libraries and museums afloat.
'Our library is our vault,' said Santa Clara Pueblo Lt. Gov. Charles Suazo, who previously served as library coordinator, a position made possible by the IMLS grant money and which is now at risk unless the tribe dips into other areas of its budget to sustain the salary. 'It holds our traditional language, some old pictures, some relics from the past. … Without this, all that could be lost.'
The Santa Clara Pueblo and the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo near Santa Fe, New Mexico, share the traditional Tewa language, which is considered endangered by Native language experts. An IMLS-funded project at the P'oe Tsawa Community Library in Ohkay Owingeh teaches Tewa to tribal youth in an effort to preserve it, but it could be on the chopping block if the grant money isn't fully restored.
'These are really critical services,' Ohkay Owingeh Lt. Gov. Matthew Martinez said. 'I mean, our library, physically, is at the center of our tribal community in rural northern New Mexico.'
The IMLS, created in 1996 and which Trump himself reauthorized in 201 8, last year announced $5.9 million in grants across 173 total grants awarded to Native American and Indigenous tribes, according to a statement from the agency. Congress appropriated $294.8 million to the agency in 2024.
Whether the president has the authority to stop the flow of the federal dollars Congress appropriated, and the IMLS already awarded, is at the center of the appeals some tribal leaders and grant managers are making to Sonderling in hopes of a lifeline for their community service projects.
The Makah Tribe in Neah Bay, Washington, is home to the Makah Cultural and Research Center, which could be left on the hook for large portions of the $149,779 Native American Library Enhancement Grant it was awarded. The grant funds hadn't been reimbursed in full by the IMLS when the grant was terminated halfway through its life cycle last month, according to Janine Ledford, the executive director of the Makah Cultural and Research Center.
'This project has been empowering individuals on their journey toward wellness in response to an alarming opioid epidemic on the Makah Reservation,' Ledford wrote in an appeal letter sent to Sonderling on May 7 and shared with NBC News. 'The MCRC has been open since 1979 and has never had any federal awards offered, accepted and then revoked.'
Tribal leaders said the sprawling violation of contracts between the federal government and sovereign tribal nations opens up centuries-old wounds.
'If you look at history, the federal government, you know, put our parents and grandparents in boarding schools. Language was not taught,' said Martinez, the Ohkay Owingeh lieutenant governor. 'We were punished for speaking [our] language, so we've built momentum to privilege the use of language and incorporate it in everything that we do.'