Tribes say the U.S. misappropriated funds to pay for Native American boarding schools
Two tribal nations filed a lawsuit Thursday saying that the federal government used the trust fund money of tribes to pay for boarding schools where generations of Native children were systematically abused.
In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the Wichita Tribe and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California said that by the U.S. government's own admission, the schools were funded using money raised by forcing tribal nations into treaties to cede their lands. That money was to be held in trust for the collective benefit of tribes.
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Winnipeg Free Press
7 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
White House budget request slashes funding for tribal colleges and universities
In President Donald Trump's budget request, he's proposing slashing funding for tribal colleges and universities, including eliminating support for the country's only federally funded college for contemporary Native American arts. If the budget is approved by Congress, beginning in October, the more than $13 million in annual appropriations for the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, would be reduced to zero. It would be the first time in nearly 40 years that the congressionally chartered school would not receive federal support, said Robert Martin, the school's president. 'You can't wipe out 63 years of our history and what we've accomplished with one budget,' Martin said on Friday. 'I just can't understand or comprehend why they would do something like this.' The college, founded in 1962, has provided affordable education to thousands of Native artists and culture bearers, including U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo, painter T.C. Cannon and bestselling novelist Tommy Orange. It's the only four-year degree fine arts institution in the world devoted to contemporary Native American and Alaskan Native arts, according to its website. Martin said he has spoken with members of Congress from both major political parties who have assured him they'll work to keep the institute's budget level for the next fiscal year, but he worries the morale of students and staff will be affected. Martin said he also spoke with staff in the office of U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, a member of the Chickasaw Nation and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Cole, a Republican and former member of IAIA's board of trustees and a longtime advocate in Congress for funding that supports tribal citizens, was unavailable for comment. Breana Brave Heart, a junior studying arts and business, said the proposal shocked her and made her wonder: 'Will I be able to continue my education at IAIA with these budget cuts?' Brave Heart said she started organizing with other students to contact members of Congress. 'IAIA is under attack,' she said, 'and I need other students to know this.' Martin said that amid the Republican Trump administration's crackdown on federal policies and funding that support diversity, equity and inclusion, trust responsibilities and treaty rights owed to tribal nations have also come under attack. 'It's a problem for us and many other organizations when you've got that DEI initiative which really is not applicable to us, because we're not a racial category, we're a political status as a result of the treaties,' he said. 'We're easily identified as what this administration might refer to as a 'woke'.' Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico said the cuts are another example of the Trump administration 'turning its back on Native communities and breaking our trust responsibilities.' 'As a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, I remain committed to keeping IAIA fully funded and will continue working with appropriators and the New Mexico Congressional Delegation to ensure its future,' Luján said in a statement to The Associated Press. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The congressional budget bill includes roughly $3.75 trillion in tax cuts, extending the expiring 2017 individual income tax breaks and temporarily adding new ones that Trump campaigned on. The revenue loss would be partially offset by nearly $1.3 trillion in reduced federal spending elsewhere, namely through Medicaid and food assistance. A Jan. 30 order from the Interior Department titled 'Ending DEI Programs and Gender Ideology Extremism' stated that any efforts to eradicate diversity, equity and inclusion in the department's policy should exclude trust obligations to tribal nations. However, earlier this year, several staff members at the other two congressionally chartered schools in the country — the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas — were laid off as part of Trump's push to downsize the federal workforce. In a lawsuit filed in March, both institutions reported that some staff and faculty were rehired, but the Bureau of Indian Education notified those people that might be temporary and they may be laid off again. 'It shows what a president's values and priorities are, and that's been hard,' said Ahniwake Rose, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, an organization that represents more than 30 Tribal Colleges and Universities. 'That's been hard for our staff, our students, our faculty to see that the priority of the administration through the Department of Interior might not be on tribal colleges.' In its budget request this year, the Interior Department is proposing reducing funding to the BIE's post secondary programs by more than 80%, and that would have a devastating affect on tribal colleges and universities, or TCUs, which rely on the federal government for most of their funding, said Rose. Most TCUs offer tribal citizens a tuition-free higher education, she said, and funding them is a moral and fiduciary responsibility the federal government owes tribal nations. In the many treaties the U.S. signed with tribal nations, it outlined several rights owed to them — like land rights, health care and education through departments established later, like the BIE. Trust responsibilities are the legal and moral obligations the U.S. has to protect and uphold those rights. The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Toronto Star
3 days ago
- Toronto Star
Federal vs. state power at issue in a hearing over Trump's election overhaul executive order
BOSTON (AP) — Democratic state attorneys general on Friday will seek to block President Donald Trump's proposal for a sweeping overhaul of U.S. elections in a case that tests a constitutional bedrock — the separation of powers. The top law enforcement officials from 19 states filed a federal lawsuit after the Republican president signed the executive order in March, arguing that its provisions would step on states' power to set their own election rules and that the executive branch had no such authority. In a filing supporting that argument, a bipartisan group of former secretaries of state said Trump's directive would upend the system established by the Constitution's Elections Clause, which gives states and Congress control over how elections are run. They said the order seeks to 'unilaterally coronate the President as the country's chief election policymaker and administrator.' ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW If the court does not halt the order, they argued, 'the snowball of executive overreach will grow swiftly and exponentially.' Trump's election directive was part of a flurry of executive orders he has issued in the opening months of his second term, many of which have drawn swift legal challenges. It follows years of him falsely claiming that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election was due to widespread fraud and an election year in which he and other Republicans promoted the notion that large numbers of noncitizens threatened the integrity of U.S. elections. In fact, voting by noncitizens is rare and, when caught, can lead to felony charges and deportation. Trump's executive order would require voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, prohibit mail or absentee ballots from being counted if they are received after Election Day, set new rules for voting equipment and prohibit non-U.S. citizens from being able to donate in certain elections. It also would condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the strict ballot deadline. The hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Boston comes in one of three lawsuits filed against the executive order. One is from Oregon and Washington, where elections are conducted almost entirely by mail and ballots received after Election Day are counted as long as they are postmarked by then. The provision that would create a proof-of-citizenship requirement for federal elections already has been halted in a lawsuit filed by voting and civil rights groups and national Democratic organizations. In that case, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, the judge said the president's attempt to use a federal agency to enact a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voting usurped the power of states and Congress, which at the time was considering legislation that would do just that. That bill, called the SAVE Act, passed the U.S. House but faces an uncertain future in the Senate. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Trump's executive order said its intent was to ensure 'free, fair and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion.' The Justice Department, in arguing against the motion by the attorneys general for a preliminary injunction, said the president is within his rights to direct agencies to carry out federal voting laws. The order tasks the U.S. Election Assistance Commission with updating the federal voter registration form to require people to submit documentation proving they are U.S. citizens. Similar provisions enacted previously in a handful of states have raised concerns about disenfranchising otherwise eligible voters who can't readily access those documents. That includes married women, who would need both a birth certificate and a marriage license if they had changed their last name. A state proof-of-citizenship law enacted in Kansas more than a decade ago blocked the registrations of 31,000 people later found to be eligible to vote. The two sides will argue over whether the president has the authority to direct the election commission, which was created by Congress as an independent agency after the Florida ballot debacle during the 2000 presidential election. In its filing, the Justice Department said Trump's executive order falls within his authority to direct officials 'to carry out their statutory duties,' adding that 'the only potential voters it disenfranchises are noncitizens who are ineligible to vote anyway.' Read more on the U.S. Election at
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Federal vs. state power at issue in a hearing over Trump's election overhaul executive order
BOSTON (AP) — Democratic state attorneys general on Friday will seek to block President Donald Trump's proposal for a sweeping overhaul of U.S. elections in a case that tests a constitutional bedrock — the separation of powers. The top law enforcement officials from 19 states filed a federal lawsuit after the Republican president signed the executive order in March, arguing that its provisions would step on states' power to set their own election rules and that the executive branch had no such authority. In a filing supporting that argument, a bipartisan group of former secretaries of state said Trump's directive would upend the system established by the Constitution's Elections Clause, which gives states and Congress control over how elections are run. They said the order seeks to 'unilaterally coronate the President as the country's chief election policymaker and administrator.' If the court does not halt the order, they argued, 'the snowball of executive overreach will grow swiftly and exponentially.' Trump's election directive was part of a flurry of executive orders he has issued in the opening months of his second term, many of which have drawn swift legal challenges. It follows years of him falsely claiming that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election was due to widespread fraud and an election year in which he and other Republicans promoted the notion that large numbers of noncitizens threatened the integrity of U.S. elections. In fact, voting by noncitizens is rare and, when caught, can lead to felony charges and deportation. Trump's executive order would require voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, prohibit mail or absentee ballots from being counted if they are received after Election Day, set new rules for voting equipment and prohibit non-U.S. citizens from being able to donate in certain elections. It also would condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the strict ballot deadline. The hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Boston comes in one of three lawsuits filed against the executive order. One is from Oregon and Washington, where elections are conducted almost entirely by mail and ballots received after Election Day are counted as long as they are postmarked by then. The provision that would create a proof-of-citizenship requirement for federal elections already has been halted in a lawsuit filed by voting and civil rights groups and national Democratic organizations. In that case, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, the judge said the president's attempt to use a federal agency to enact a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voting usurped the power of states and Congress, which at the time was considering legislation that would do just that. That bill, called the SAVE Act, passed the U.S. House but faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Trump's executive order said its intent was to ensure 'free, fair and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion.' The Justice Department, in arguing against the motion by the attorneys general for a preliminary injunction, said the president is within his rights to direct agencies to carry out federal voting laws. The order tasks the U.S. Election Assistance Commission with updating the federal voter registration form to require people to submit documentation proving they are U.S. citizens. Similar provisions enacted previously in a handful of states have raised concerns about disenfranchising otherwise eligible voters who can't readily access those documents. That includes married women, who would need both a birth certificate and a marriage license if they had changed their last name. A state proof-of-citizenship law enacted in Kansas more than a decade ago blocked the registrations of 31,000 people later found to be eligible to vote. The two sides will argue over whether the president has the authority to direct the election commission, which was created by Congress as an independent agency after the Florida ballot debacle during the 2000 presidential election. In its filing, the Justice Department said Trump's executive order falls within his authority to direct officials 'to carry out their statutory duties,' adding that 'the only potential voters it disenfranchises are noncitizens who are ineligible to vote anyway.'
