Blood is Thicker Than Water, But Not for The Macarros: Tribal Chairman Keeps His Own Family Members Out of the Pechanga Tribe

President Mark Macarro's family still not in the Pechanga tribe.  Post from years ago

Pechanga Chairman and National Congress of American Indians Vice President Mark Macarro's public persona belies his actual demeanor.  We wrote about this story years ago.  It brings to question the Pechanga moratorium, which was put in place 25 year ago, to "correct the record". 

THREE DECADES OF MORATORIUM IS A FARCE 

How is it that in 25 years, the enrollment committee couldn't figure out Chairman Mark's FIRST COUSIN, Arlene Macarro and family, rightfully belonged.  25 years. The newborn grandbabies of the Enrollment committee could have graduated from college.  

This story is not limited to Pechanga, here's one from 2000 in the LA TIMES

So, brace yourself for this one.  It's well-known that the Chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, Mark Macarro, has allowed the despicable act of wiping out more than 20% of his own tribe via an unlawful disenrollment. And get this, it was against the Pechanga tribal constitution! But that's not even the worst part. This scum, along with his little brother John and cousin Victor, had worked tirelessly to keep their OWN FAMILY members out of the tribe. Can you believe it?  Some of us can, we've experienced it.

Their own cousin, Arlene Macarro, has been languishing in the membership moratorium for over two decades, I repeat, Mark Macarro's OWN COUSIN. and all while these bloodsuckers play their disgusting little games and keep rightful members out of the tribe.  Yes, it's for money as we wrote here. 

Arlene says she didn’t learn she had lost her tribal membership until she traveled in 1998, to the Temecula reservation to visit her grandfather’s grave and was denied entry by security guards.

Many tribal people THOUGHT they were members, they didn't realize they had to apply for membership.   In fact in the first 1979 membership, Mark Macarro is absent.  Others, not blood related wormed their way into the tribe.   They were not disenrolled. 

And if that wasn't bad enough, it appears they stooped so low as to engage in some shady quid pro quo to get our family out of the tribe.  Former enrollment committee chairman Bobbi LeMere was able to sneak her adult family members into the tribe just after the Hunter disenrollments were confirmed, AGAINST TRIBAL LAW: The Moratorium.   LeMere's family could get in, but NOT THE CHAIRMAN'S?  That sounds shady, doesn't it? Tribe have the sovereign right to be shady AF, and damn if they don't exercise it.

If you want to read about the full extent of this nauseating family feud, check out the link to pechangajournal. But be warned, the details alleged are not for the faint of heart. And as if things couldn't get any worse, Arlene, a member of the Macarro family, has alleged she'd been threatened by Victor Rocha.

It just goes to show you that being a vile, loathsome jerk runs in the Macarro family. Disgusting by any measure.

Just because a tribe has sovereign right to abuse their own, it doesn't make the abuse right.

WHO is caught in the Pechanga Moritorium on Membership of Rightful People UPDATE

UPDATE: Have moved this up on the blog so that those caught up in the moratorium can find it easier. It's been up for TWO weeks and we still haven't heard from what? Two people? Please moratorium people, we are giving YOU a place to be heard, so stand up and let's hear from you

We have a couple of commenters who bemoan the fact that there aren't many stories or comments on the unconstitutional Pechanga Tribe of Temecula, CA's moratorium of new members.

The moratorium has been in place for 12 years now and it was created to "give the enrollment committee" time to catch up. We ask: How is that "catch up" going? Can the enrollment committee be so INEPT that they can't look at the applications and see who rightfully belongs?

Below is a story we posted in December of 2008 describing one family. We will post it again in its entirety and would LOVE to read comments from those in the moratorium. Tell us YOUR story, what family you belong to, how many are in your family that SHOULD be in the Pechanga tribe. Let's HEAR FROM YOU.

From December 2008:

Pechanga's Moratorium People: From Pechanga, But Not OF Pechanga

The Rios/Tosobal Family has ties to the Pechanga tribe, from his mother back to his great-great-great-grandmother, born in 1811. (That’s when Abe Lincoln was 2 years old!)

So, when his mother died in 1978 and left him a piece of reservation land, Manuel Rios Jr. began trying to make arrangements to bring water and electricity to the plot so he could set up a home there. 30 years later, he has yet to get tribal approval to do anything with the land.
Tribal officials had told him he and his family are not on the rolls, he said, and they won’t get considered for membership until a moratorium on new enrollments is lifted now extended past 2010. His family members, who number more than 100, have stacks of documents that they say they submitted to the enrollment committee 15 years ago.

As a nonmember, the Rios family has no recourse against the sovereign nation. He can’t sue the tribe in an outside or tribal court, and he can’t vote on the moratorium or cast a ballot against the elected tribal leaders.

The reservation has changed dramatically since Rios’ mother was a girl there, thanks to the opening of a $262 million resort and casino and other businesses. Now that tribal members collect a reported $30,000 in gaming profits a month, disputes over membership are commonplace.

Rios and others insist they once were members, and they allege that someone removed their names in order to ensure larger shares of gaming profits for the other members.
Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro has said tribes work hard to make sure that there’s due process in enrollment matters, yet, in reality, there is no due process.
He also contends that many recent applicants had no interest in the tribe until it was rich. ‘‘Where were these people before there was a casino?’’ Macarro asked.

Rios’ 53-year-old son, Manuel Rios Jr. of Riverside, said he’s glad his grandmother left the reservation, and her descendants avoided being mired in reservation poverty because of it. ‘‘I was out getting an education so I wouldn’t have to suck the money from the state of California to support me,’’ he said in an interview in Fontana. ‘‘We were paying for their (tribal member’s) welfare.’’

The Rios family members contend that the Pechanga tribal leadership is using sovereignty to improperly deny them membership and is acting like a dictatorship. In fact, Pechanga’s own constitution provides for OPEN ENROLLMENT every January. In the most recent disenrollment of the Hunter family, which occurred in 2006, the tribe stated that the membership, which voted to stop ALL disenrollments, had no authority to do so. That would mean, they have the power to keep people from getting IN, but no the authority to keep people from getting thrown OUT. That makes no sense at all.