Apparently, Larry didn't need no stinkin due process to select TEJON TRIBE for Recognition...
The Office of Inspector General investigated former Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs (AS-IA) Larry Echo Hawk’s decision to “reaffirm” the Tejon Indian Tribe of California in December 2011 without going through the acknowledgment process set forth in 25 C.F.R., Part 83, “Procedures for Establishing That an American Indian Group Exists as an Indian Tribe.”
We found that the Tejon Tribe, along with several other American Indian groups, submitted petitions requesting reaffirmation by the AS-IA. These petitions were outside the Part 83 acknowledgment process, which is the official process for recognizing Indian groups as tribes and is administered by the AS-IA’s Office of Federal Acknowledgment (OFA). We could not find any discernible process Echo Hawk and his staff might have used to select the Tejon Tribe for recognition above the other groups.
We also found that Echo Hawk and his staff did not consult with OFA or with Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) leadership before deciding to reaffirm the Tejon Tribe. Because OFA was not consulted, other American Indian groups with historical, genealogical, and ancestral claims to the original Tejon Indians were left out of the process. In addition, not involving BIA leadership caused budgeting and operational difficulties for BIA, which in turn slowed down the process for providing Federal services to the Tejon Tribe. The AS-IA also denied subsequent requests by BIA for additional FY 2013 funding, which was needed to provide these services for the newly recognized Tribe.
Read about MORE of Larry Echo Hawk's process on San Pascual.
2 comments:
Larry Echo-Hawk's Legacy at the BIA has left a bad taste in peoples mouth. He was led by special intrests. Law firms who worked with the Tribes but had special influence within the Bureau. I hope Echo-Hawk enjoys his tenure at the Mormon Temple. He'll probably desacrate that as well.
Oh this makes me so angry. I am Juaneno and he failed to recognize us, although we proved who we were. There is even a lawyer at the Senate hearing on the Federal Recognition process who said "they recognized one tribe for having such and such documentation, but not the Juaneno's who had the same documentation." Why am I not surprised by this? I am also San Pasqual so anything this guy does is dirty to me.
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