Disenrolled Indians Can Lose FEDERAL Benefits When Stripped of Tribal Citizenship

An August 2007 story in Capitol Weekly still rings true, and sadly, has expanded out of California.

Individual Indian tribes are the sole arbiter of who is and is not a member. But members who are disenrolled from tribes can lose their access to federal benefits, as well, including housing, education, health care and welfare.

Nationwide, thousands of Indians have been kicked out of tribes in recent years. Most of these disenrollments have happened in the years since the advent of tribal casino gaming. Many tribes say their numbers swelled as non-members sought entry into the tribe, and they are dealing with backlogs of illegitimate tribal applicants.

Hugh Hefner's PLAYBOY Had Disenrollment Story THREE YEARS before the NEW YORK TIMES

Yes, ladies and gentlemen Playboy beats the NYTIMES to the important issues. 

April 2008 Edition with
Story on DISENROLLMENT

While primarily known has a "men's magazine" Playboy also kept up with the issues of the day.  Playboy's April 2008 included a story on ousted Seminole Chief James Billie, with the article focusing on  Billies' fall from power as Chairman of the Seminole Nation and his eventual banishment by an opposing faction of the tribal council.

As a side bar, page 56 highlights the disenrollments at Pechanga:

Using the Wrong Tactics in Shingle Springs Tribal Dispute Leads to Charges

CESAR, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

 An El Dorado County man who claims the tribe that built the Red Hawk Casino is a band of imposters has been charged with trying to divert the tribe's mail.

Cesar Caballero, 41, faces three misdemeanor counts of mail obstruction in a complaint filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court in Sacramento.

According to the complaint, Caballero submitted three change of address forms with the postal service last August to forward mail from a post office box belonging to the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians to Caballero's home address in the town of El Dorado.

Caballero is locked in a bitter dispute with the Shingle Springs Band, claiming he and several hundred other Native American outsiders are the true descendents of the Miwoks who lived in El Dorado County.

Capitol Weekly Discusses Tribal Disenrollments and the UN Human Rights Council

The United Nation’s Human Rights Council (HRC) has begun a year-long review of the United States’ human rights record, with particular attention to be paid to the nation’s treatment of its indigenous American Indian population. Some American Indian activists are using the occasion to make a case that the country is falling short — by failing to protect Indians from their own tribal governments. That will be the focus of a meeting in Sacramento on April 17 organized by the American Indian Rights and Resources Organization (AIRRO, pronounced “arrow”). The group will hold a second session in Temecula on April 24. The goal is to gather testimony and evidence about actions taken by tribal government against Indians, both members of tribes and people have been told they are no longer tribal members. This testimony will then be turned over not only to the HRC but the federal Departments of State, Justice, and the Interior, said AIRRO president John Gomez, Jr. “The UN is going to look at the United States record of enforcing and protecting the basic rights of people within its borders, especially indigenous people,” Gomez said. “I think this will be the first time it will be shown not only to the State Department but to the UN that there really is a problem in Indian Country.” Gomez himself is a former member of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians who was disenrolled — that is, told his ancestry did not make him a legitimate member of the tribe — in 2004. He said that he is a legitimate Pechanga member, but that he and about 200 others were kicked out that year in a power struggle over the millions of dollars coming in from the tribe’s 3,000-slot-machine casino in Temecula. The tribe has repeatedly sought to refute Gomez’s claims over the half dozen years since. He now works full time for another tribe, the Ramona of Cahuilla Indians, but is not a member, in addition to running AIRRO. Read more at CAPITOL WEEKLY Thank you to Malcolm Maclachlan for bringing us the story.