The disenrollment of Native Americans from their own tribes is a civil- and human-rights crisis that demands immediate attention—not only from tribal communities, but from the federal government and the national media. Disenrollment is not a bureaucratic dispute or a cultural footnote; it is the forced erasure of people from their identity, history, and legal existence.
When governments and journalists remain silent, they become complicit in a system that strips Indigenous people of their dignity, their self-determination, and their basic human rights.
While disenrollment is not new, its acceleration in recent decades—particularly in California—has exposed a dangerous abuse of unchecked power. Thousands of Native Americans have been removed from tribal rolls through opaque processes, retaliatory actions, or shifting standards of “eligibility.” In my own case, Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro claimed that my ancestor was fraudulently enrolled—an assertion that, by logic alone, would cast doubt on the legitimacy of countless current members, as we saw in the documentary "You're No Indian". Yet these claims are rarely scrutinized by regulators or challenged by the press. Instead, tribal leaders are allowed to rewrite history without evidence, process, or consequence.
Disenrollment does far more than sever paperwork. It destroys lives. Disenrolled individuals lose access to health care, education, housing, and burial rights—often overnight. Families are torn apart. Elders are cast out. The Nooksack 306 eviction hearings stand as a chilling example of how disenrollment can escalate into mass displacement, with Native people being physically removed from lands their families have lived on for generations. If this were happening to any other racial or ethnic group in the United States, it would dominate headlines and provoke congressional hearings. Why are 11,000 disenrolled Natives ignored.
This issue cannot be separated from the broader historical context. Native Americans have survived genocide, forced assimilation, land theft, and systematic oppression—much of it carried out or sanctioned by the federal government. Disenrollment perpetuates that same pattern of erasure, only now it is often executed internally, enabled by gaming wealth, political insulation, and federal neglect. To dismiss this as “tribal sovereignty” without acknowledging the human cost is to weaponize sovereignty against the very people it was meant to protect.
Tribal communities must recommit to transparency, democratic governance, and due process. Disputes over membership eligibility should be resolved openly, fairly, and collectively—not behind closed doors, not by silencing dissent, not by banning citizens for speaking out, and not by stripping voting rights on the eve of elections. Unity cannot be built through fear or exclusion.
At the same time, the federal government must stop pretending it has no role to play. The Department of the Interior oversees Indian affairs and has both the authority and the moral obligation to act when civil rights are violated. Looking the other way—shrugging shoulders, hiding behind legal technicalities, or “respecting sovereignty” at all costs—is not leadership. It is abandonment. Federal oversight was never meant to disappear the moment abuses became inconvenient.
The media, too, must step up. Disenrollment stories are rarely told, rarely investigated, and rarely followed. Silence allows these practices to continue unchecked. Journalists must ask hard questions, expose patterns of abuse, and treat disenrollment for what it is: a human-rights crisis happening in plain sight. The New York Times was 10 years behind the times.
Restoring disenrolled Native Americans to their tribes is not merely a legal or administrative correction. It is an act of justice. Why is doing the right thing so difficult?
It is a chance to confront modern forms of Indigenous exclusion and to repair damage that continues to ripple through families and communities. Tribal leaders, federal officials, journalists, and civil-society organizations must stop averting their eyes and start acting. Inclusion, accountability, and respect for human rights are not optional—they are the foundation of any community that claims to honor its people and its past, since time immemorial.
