Indian Country Today: Loss of Citizenship via Disenrollment is a DISASTER

What is happening at Nooksack is making the national stage.  It helps those who have been victims of corrupt activities to keep bringing their stories forward.   Pechanga, Chukchansi, Redding, Pala, Cherokee Freedmen all have disenrollment stories, and they are not alone. Moratoriums have harmed hundreds, and loss of federal recognition, like the Mixed Blood Uinta Utes are stories that also need to be learned.

Read this opinion piece from Indian Country Today:

Prof. David Wilkins is dismayed by language chosen by the Chief Judge of the Nooksack Tribal Court in a disenrollment decision.

His dismay is directed not at the holding of the case, which supported the sovereign authority of the Nooksack Nation to be stupid, but to the Chief Judge’s assertion that tribal enrollment is of less legal import than loss of US citizenship.

Nowhere in Prof. Wilkins’s critique of the opinion does he touch the essential argument the judge made: “While the impact on the disenrollee is serious and detrimental, it is not akin to becoming stateless.”

I propose a thought experiment. Suppose that the persons subject to disenrollment by the Nooksacks had US citizenship not by the right of birth set out in the Fourteenth Amendment, but rather a derivative citizenship based on the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

Suppose that upon disenrollment, US passports had to be surrendered, Social Security numbers cancelled. Would that not be at least a different kettle of fish, if not two seasons ofThe Deadliest Catch?

Disenrollees would be insulted and diminished. They may have lost affirmative action consideration if it existed anymore. They would have lost any benefits that flow though membership in the Nooksack Social Club—for so it will render itself by its own actions.

Disenrollees are not stateless persons in two senses. The first is that they still have passports and the consular rights those passports confer. They still have Social Security cards and access to the anemic social safety net those cards confer.

The second is that they are still citizens of the Nooksack Nation to the degree it still exists, as the Cherokee Nation does, as the Six Nations do, as the Navajo Nation does…I am not fully informed how many tribal nations survive, but I’m certain that it’s a substantially smaller number than can be found in 25Code of Federal RegulationsPart 83.

You don’t get your tribal citizenship from the US government.

Either something of your tribal identity, your peoplehood, survives as more than family folklore or it does not.

 

Oranna Felter: Mixed Blood Uintas Continue Fight to Repeal Public Law 671

Our friend Oranna Felter has a letter to editor up that points out that the fight of the Mixed Blood Uinta's is NOT over.  They are taking their fight to Congress.  Let's not let the government succeed in wiping out another Indian Tribe.

Dear Editor,

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who sent, faxed emailed and personally dropped off petitions to have Public Law 671 of the 83rd Congress repealed. We now have hundreds of petitions that will be used to have the law repealed.

A notice of the petitions was posted in the local paper, a meeting was called for the purpose of approving the petitions and getting them ready for the repeal. At the meeting the members voted to accept the petitions and head to Congress. Many petitions were signed there.

On April 30, Attorney Dennis Chappabitty and myself sent out letters to all who had previously submitted petitions along with recently received petitions. We were amazed at the amount of petitions that we now have on file and thank you for having faith and confidence in us and we look forward to working with you in getting this repeal done as quickly as possible.

We decided to start working on a repeal while the Felter case was still in the federal courts, just in case we didn't get a favorable decision, because we felt after eight years of waiting and expenses, and our people passing away we could wait no longer. We wanted to be ready to take the final step to Congress. When the decision came down against us, we were ready to move forward. We felt the court system is a waste of time and money.

There were times that I felt I wanted to just give up after spending a lifetime trying to get some kind of justice for me, my family and all the individual terminated mixed-bloods and our descendents who supported us, especially after the case was dismissed. But Dennis Chappabitty, our attorney, refused and still refuses to give up until our identities as American Indians and the identities of our descendants is restored.

For all of you who have your petitions in, we will be going on with our “Journey to Justice” to walk the halls of Congress and we are proud that you have chosen to walk with us. We have prayed that all of our case members would stick together and most of you have, plus others. To any of you who hasn't got your petitions in, time is of the essence.

We will keep all of you who submitted your petitions informed as we work diligently to have this genocidal law repealed as quickly as possible. Every day is a work day for us.

May Grandfather walk this path with us and our spiritual men shower us with blessings to keep the path open and have the halls of Congress hold out their arms in welcome us as we present our petitions and bill.

Mixed Blood Uintas Losing Battle of Attrition to Federal Government

When you have the full force of the United States Government trying to exterminate your people, it's difficult to mount a defense of your history and ancestors.   Here's a story about the Mixed Blood Uintas, who were terminated by our government.

Here's a link to their website

In this website is chronicled the history of the Ute Partition Act of 1954 (UPA) and the effects it has had on the Terminated mixed blood members of the Uinta band of Ute's and their action to repeal the "UPA". Read and learn the true facts about the Discrimination brought upon 490 once independent, self-supporting, productive American Indian's, who were reduced to welfare rolls in less then ten years.

No Unique Group of Americans illustrates the vulgarity of a failed federal policy more than the Mixed-Blood Uinta's of Utah. Who were once full members of the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation located in northeastern Utah and who find themselves "non grata" in the land of their birth...

A Government policy called termination, carried out in the early 1950's. A policy of assimilating American Indians into main stream American society which was allowed to go "awry". Assimilation designed to force American Indians out of their culture and told to forget their history.

Why have scholars and the mainstream media avoided the saga of the Mixed-Blood Uinta’s? Your first thought would be this doesn't happen in America, would seem the most obvious. But the real reason this story is ignored simply because they are not considered Indian enough and is a kind of “racial dualism” that is deeply rooted in Anglo-American thought, and this dualism carries over into scholarly dichotomies of “Indian and white.” (Warren Metcalf’s “Terminations Legacy” page 3) But the real reason is the vast amount of wealth powerful non-Indian individuals (Grifter's) and entities are receiving, surreptitiously, under the UPA by chicanery and claiming titular which is a canard!

There's a lot to learn from there site.   Please take a look