The BIA Violates Sovereignty When it is In their Best Interest: Disenrollments Violate ICRA

Civil Rights attorney Donald R. Daines has written a post for us concerning the BIA and those with a "BIA Agenda", which surprisingly can be some tribal leaders.

The US BIA only violates Sovereignty when it is in their best interest. That’s why the BIA is known as the Bureau of Indian Annihilation. Once the BIA inserts the people its wants in power over the Tribal Nation, then when the People object and want their real leaders, the BIA says it cannot interfere because the dispute (which the BIA created in the first place) is an ‘internal’ problem which Tribal sovereignty prevents the BIA from interfering with. What took place in 1993 with the Oneida Indians of New York (not the Oneida Indian Nation that has existed for a 1,000 years as part of the Haudenosaune, but an entirely new ‘tribe’ called the Oneida Indian Nation of New York) is a textbook example of how the BIA (Bureau of Indian Annihilation) works.

Joanne Shenandoah, Native American Music Awards Co-Founder, Needs Help For Transplant

In the last decade, the Shenandoah family has worked to end the disgraceful actions of disenrollment.  Now, she needs help from the Native community.

Shenandoah is a Grammy Award winner. She has received more Native American Music Awards (14 to date) than any other Native Artist, and a total of more than 40 music awards.

Joanne Shenandoah is the daughter of Maisie Shenadoah, Wolf Clan mother of the Oneida Nation of New York, and the late Clifford Shenandoah, an Onondaga Nation chief.  

               

Her family suffered under Oneida Chairman Ray Halbritter  and her health suffered as well. Please help keep her Native talent alive and thriving.

PLEASE, share this post or her GOFUNDME page:  

JOANNE SHENANDOAH GO FUND ME PAGE

Prayer Request for the Schenendoah Family of Oneida Nation

I received this prayer request from friends of the Oneida Nation. See THIS VIDEO as to how code enforcement works at the Oneida Nation

Please add the Schenandoah family to your prayers..

On March 14, 2012 Diane Schenandoah received notice from the Oneida Nation of New York that her log cabin would be inspected by their Codes Enforcement Officer. In that order it states that she must cease and desist from repairing her cabin on Oneida Territory homeland. OP: Cease and desist? Should they want her to keep working on it? Diane Schenandoah, a Faith Keeper for the Oneida people has been working for the past several years towards restoring her mother "Wolf Clan Mother" Maisie's cabin.

This cabin was the first longhouse for ceremonies on the Oneida Territory. Maisie, Sonny, her family and numerous people have stayed, danced and gathered, prayed. learned and worked on Art over the years. Diane has worked on her Art there for the past 30 years and has been working toward restoring this historical piece of Oneida Territory which has been in need since the passing of Maisie.

Diane is praying for a peaceful and fair resolution and has agreed to allow an inspection. There is a great need for peace and healing after the previous forced police inspections which left many evicted and homeless. She is Praying for Fairness with Integrity in the name of peace and concessional resolve.

We ask for your prayers that;

That the "Oneida Nation" work with Diane for repairs to go forward and that our Creator God will provide the necessary resouces for completion.

OPINION II: Are Disenrollments a Violations of the Indian Civil Rights Act?

Civil Rights Attorney Donald Daines gives us a supplement and clarification to his prior post “Are Disenrollments a Violation of the Indian Civil Rights Act? But in the end, the solution does not lay in what the BIA or the US Courts decide, but within ourselves.”    To save space, the post will has a break in it, PLEASE read the entire supplement and add your questions and comments. OP

Thank you for the opportunity to supplement my previous post to clarify some confusion of the readers and address a couple of questions and misunderstandings about the Indian Civil Rights Act. As previously stated, the only relief under ICRA is “habeas corpus” (free the prisoner from ‘custody’). If the prisoner is in a Nation’s jail, the habeas corpus petition is made under to the US Courts 25 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1303 ICRA. If the prisoner is in a US Federal prison pursuant to an order of a Nation Tribal Court, the petition is made under to the US Courts still under 25 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1303 ICRA because the incarceration is according to the Tribal Court decision, not the US Court.

Indian Nations have ‘government to government’ direct with the US Federal government. An Indian Nation can take an Indian prisoner to be incarcerated for the Indian Nation. The incarceration is according to the Indian Nation’s judgment and order, not that of the US Courts or US laws. The US is merely the custodian of the prisoner pursuant to the Indian Nation’s Tribal Court orders and the US has no authority to release an Indian prisoner but must abide by the Tribal Court’s decisions.

One of the many “Anonymous” comments, I believe 11:42AM, was correct about how Santa Clara could be argued to apply only to additions to the Roll of new people, but not control the removal of members by disenrollment. Poodry over ruled Santa Clara with regard to ‘banishment’. The comment was “Santa Clara does not fit in with termination of life long Indians from a band, restriction to or threats of restriction of Indians to there homes, or more important the termination of Indians rights under distress of a dictatorship.” Again, I have not yet found any decision addressing ‘disenrollments’, which are worse than banishment.

Even if an act is a clear violation of ICRA, you still must prove “restraint” that qualifies as “custody” before the US Court has any power to undue or release the person from “custody”. What restraint is sufficient to “custody will be a matter of debate for a very, very long time because there is no “bright line”. Poodry held that “banishment” was sufficient restraints upon liberty to constitute “custody”, therefore, the US Court not had power to step in, but under ICRA, it had an obligation to order the Indian Nation to release the banished people from the custody of banishment.

What I have not yet seen is a court decision that involves the question of whether “disenrollment” (mush worse than banishment) is sufficient “restraint” upon liberties to constitute “custody” for purposes of requiring the US Court to release the disenrolled from the custody of disenrollment.

If disenrollment can be found to be sufficient restraint to be custody, then the disenrolled have a powerful weapon to force the Nation to reinstate them. Everyone here knows that those who did the disenrollment will break their brains trying to figure out other ways to punish the reinstated members, so the dispute will never end until people realize how disenrollments are exactly what the US policies want, and they don’t even have to pay for the bullets. The new motto will become “the only good Indian is a disenrolled Indian.” What are you all thinking about? geesh

Well another potentially powerful weapon to use against those who use their intelligence to disenroll members rather than sharing the buffalo kill with the whole village is to argue that disenrollments are in fact “bills of attainder” and expressly prohibited by ICRA, therefore the US Courts must reinstate the members. You don’t have to argue that disenrollments are sufficient restraints upon liberties to rise to the level of being “custody” because ICRA specifically says “No Indian Tribe in exercising powers of self-government shall—(9) pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law.” § 1302. ICRA acknowledges that bills of attainder are by definition “custody” and therefore, the US Court has the power under ICRA to grant habeas corpus relief and reverse the disenrollment.

So, the question becomes which the US Courts have not yet answered that I have found is do these disenrollments constitute a prohibited ‘bill of attainder’? Again, ICRA was only adopted in 1968, a little over 40 years ago – one life time. So of the more than 200 years of Indian Wars, Indians have only had ICRA for the last 40, and its meaning is being interpreted everyday, and will continue to be argued about.