Can Donald Trump FAIL to UPHOLD Federal Trust Responsibility To the Same Magnitude as Barack Obama?

We KNOW that former President Barack Obama's administration FAILED to protect the individual Indian from harm by their tribal leaders.  Can we expect Donald Trump to fail as miserably?  Why do our leaders IGNORE THEIR MORAL RESPONSIBILITY?

WHO can be the BIGGER FAILURE on
Trust Responsibility to Native Americans

We write about tribal disenrollment most often, but this goes deeper, including coverage of health care and all the benefits that should come to ALL Indian people.

As noted Native American attorney Gabe Galanda wrote last year:

Obama's Sequester Harms Indian Health Care

Indian Country Today has the details:

The many ways the federal government’s sequester will hurt Indian country are easy to see. The National Congress of American Indians has released a policy paper saying that tribal economic growth has already been thwarted; the National Indian Education Association has said the cuts “devastate” Indian education; and Native journalist Mark Trahant estimates that the overall financial reduction for funding in Indian country totals $386 million—and that’s just through the end of September.

In all, the joint decision by Congress and the Obama White House, first made in 2011 and carried out on March 1, to allow an across-the-board 9 percent cut to all non-exempt domestic federal programs (and a 13 percent cut for Defense accounts)—known collectively as the sequester—amounts to a major violation of the trust responsibility relationship the federal government is supposed to have with American Indians, as called for in historic treaties, the U.S. Constitution and contemporary American policy.

While all of the cutbacks are troubling and difficult to bear, perhaps the most problematic of all are the ones happening at the Indian Health Service (IHS), housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The IHS must offer healthcare to enrolled tribal citizens, providing services for what are often the poorest of all Indians who live on reservations and can’t afford other healthcare.

With even the smallest of federal cuts, the agency—which has been vastly underfunded, by most tribal accounts, for decades—would have a more difficult time carrying out its mission. But it turns out that a sequester miscalculation—made through a combination of IHS error in misreading relevant law and a judgment call by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—has ended up costing tribal citizens much more than they were originally told.

IHS Director Yvette Roubideaux and her staffers had said at various tribal meetings and in letters throughout 2011 and early 2012 that “the worst-case scenario would be a 2 percent decrease from current funding levels” for IHS, rather than the 9 percent that was forecasted for most federal agencies if the sequester went into effect.

But Indian country began to learn late last year that Roubideaux’ predictions were wrong. IHS would be cut on March 1 at the same rate as every other non-protected agency. And since IHS was late to the game in planning for the larger cut, it didn’t work as aggressively at saving and protecting its resources as it could have. Also—and perhaps most egregiously—it fed tribes misinformation that cost them months of planning and advocacy time. “It’s unfortunate that we all relied on [IHS’s] earlier interpretation, because we could have addressed this earlier with the administration (especially the OMB) and the Congress,” said Jim Roberts, a policy analyst with the Northwest Portland Indian Health Board.


Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/03/11/miscalculation-sequester-has-already-harmed-indian-health-148110

President Obama Announces Endorsement of UN Declaration; Will POTUS address issues of Human Rights Abuses in INDIAN COUNTRY?

It's a good move for our President to lend his endorsement, but will it be wind through rotted sails? We have so many human rights issues here in Indian Country that many tribal leaders should be EMBARRASSED.

During the second annual Tribal Nations Summit in Washington, DC this morning, President Obama announced that the United States will lend its support to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Prior to this morning's announcement, the United States had been the lone holdout of the original four nations to vote against the adoption of the Declaration by the UN General Assembly in 2007; the other three (Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) have all since reversed their position.

AIRRO held listening sessions on the abuses in Indian Country, that we wrote about in April:


Indians from various parts of Indian Country recently participated in several listening sessions hosted by the American Indian Rights and Resources Organization ("AIRRO"), a Native American civil rights group.

The sessions were held to allow individuals, groups and tribes an opportunity to testify regarding violations of basic human and civil rights in Indian Country. The testimony and recommendations given at each of the sessions will be used by AIRRO to prepare a report which will submitted to the United Nations for use in the Universal Periodic Review of rights issues within the United States.

"The sessions were important for the simple fact that they allowed individuals and groups the opportunity to provide information regarding an issue, that up till now, had gone unreported," stated AIRRO President John Gomez, Jr. "Many people are unaware that tribal officials have committed gross human rights violations against their own citizens. And many more would be surprised to hear that the United States government is largely responsible for allowing the violations to occur and continue."

Please see:   Apartheid at Pechanga    Genocide in Indian Country       Pechanga's ICRA Violations    Temecula Massacres

The United States has created an environment for human and civil rights abuses in Indian Country. As long as tribal officials can invoke immunity to escape prosecution and individuals are denied redress for violations of their rights, the number of human rights victims in Indian Country will continue to grow," added Gomez.


The attendees at each of the sessions provided recommendations to address the rights abuses in Indian Country. Well some stated that federal courts should have the authority to review tribal actions that allegedly violate the rights of individuals, most said that the federal government must provide meaningful enforcement of existing laws enacted to protect individuals from abuses by tribal officials.

Will President Obama's Government Look into Tribal Disenrollments?

There is great hope that this new Congress will look into disenrollments, such as those perpetrated on their people by Pechanga, Redding, Picayune, San Pascual here in California. Will Rep. Diane Watson finally look into what's happening in her own back yard?

Capitol Weekly has a story up.

American Indian activists have high hopes for the new Barack Obama administration-including the hope that the issue of tribal disenrollments could finally be on the president's radar.

Many say they are closely watching who Obama will appoint to head the Department of the Interior, which overseas the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Meanwhile, the inclusion of disenrollment and other issues of importance to tribes have made it into a list of recommendations for question to ask potential Interior appointees issued by the federal General Accountability Office.

OP: We have letters posted to the candidates. PLEASE send one for each of your family members.

Last month, he named Harper and five other American Indians to his transition team. Harper was an plaintiff's attorney on the Cobell vs. Kempthorne case. This was a massive class action case charging Interior and Dick Kempthorne, the agency's director since 2006, with massive mismanagement of assets they held on behalf of American Indians.

Harper is also on record taking on some tribes that have disenrolled members, said activist Cathy Corey. In one memorable exchange on the Indian-themed radio show, he said that tribes that kicked out members were "not acting like nations."

While Harper is likely to get an appointment at Interior of elsewhere, he is not among the names being floated as director of the department. The two names that come up most often in connection to that job are Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, and Kevin Gover, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Thompson has long been considered friendly to tribal issues; he has already been endorsed for the job by one California tribe, the Karuk

Read MORE at the link above.

Related Stories:

Tribal Flush
All that Glitters
Without a Tribe