Interior Approves Amended Nooksack “1-800” Disenrollment Procedures; Tribal Council Faction Immediately Recommences Disenrollment of the Nooksack 306
From the Nooksack 306 Facebook page just now:
On January 13, 2015, the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary communicated her approval of a new version of the Nooksack Tribe’s “Enrollment” Ordinance to the Nooksack Tribal Council faction lead by Tribal Chairman Bob Kelly. Within two weeks, the Nooksack Tribal Council faction recommenced disenrollment of the Nooksack 306.
According to Interior, the Ordinance “incorporates additional procedures related to disenrollment and addresses due process issues raised by the Nooksack Tribal Court.” The federally approved tribal law allows a Nooksack member “a maximum of ten minutes,” to “telephonically via conference call,” make his or her case against disenrollment to the Nooksack Tribal Council faction.
“It is laughable that the United States, our trustee, would say that a Nooksack elder is given due process when she is only allowed to speak out against her disenrollment through a 1-800 number, and for only ten minutes,” said Nooksack 306 spokesman Ron Miguel. “We are people of oral tradition. We at least deserve the courtesy of speaking our piece to our accusers face to face. This ‘process’ is a farce.”
The process recommenced almost two years to the day from when the Nooksack 306 disenrollment process started. On February 12, 2013, the family first received notices of their proposed disenrollment. The family has succeeded in fending off their disenrollment for the last two years through a series of Nooksack Tribal Court lawsuits and successful appeals to the Nooksack Tribal Court of Appeals.
In March of 2014, the Tribal Court issued a permanent injunction against the Nooksack Tribal Council faction because its disenrollment procedures had not been approved the Secretary of the Department of Interior. Yesterday, the Tribe notified the Tribal Court of Interior’s approval. In turn, the Nooksack 306 initiated a federal administrative appeal of the Secretary’s recent approval of the Nooksack “Enrollment” Ordinance, which stays the legal effect of her approval.
Meanwhile, the Nooksack Tribal Council faction has not convened the constitutionally required monthly public meeting of the entire Tribal membership since late 2012. Also, the National Indian Gaming Commission continues to investigate a series of illegal Tribal Council faction distributions of gaming per capita monies to all Tribal members except the Nooksack 306, in recent years. And, the Nooksack 306 estimate on their Facebook page that over 50 family members, or supporters like tribal language teacher George Adams (who challenged Kelly for the Chairmanship last March), have been fired from employment by the faction since the disenrollment controversy started.
The “Enrollment” Ordinance was passed at the behest of Kelly, who was adopted into the Tribe without any Nooksack blood or lineage.
It also includes an indefinite moratorium on adoption of new Nooksack members, which is in addition to a Tribe-wide moratorium on enrollment passed by the Tribal Council faction in early 2013.
“The Bob Kelly faction is ruining our Tribe and severing the next Nooksack generations in unimaginable ways,” continued Miguel. “If they are allowed to continue their fascist behavior, there will soon be no Nooksack Tribe to speak of.”
1800 number? Lmao!...The department of interior needs an Brain Enema.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately my assertions regarding the BIA and the DOI are gaining credibility. I said that the BIA will jump through hoops to protect disenrollment actions. They will seek any justification to support interpretations of tribal law that enable disenrollment. They never speak out against disenrollment, or question the integrity of the tribal leaders to whom they give deference.
ReplyDeleteWill the Nooksook disenrollees test any of the strategies I have suggested here? Will they appeal this ruling on the basis that it is discriminatory, that it calls for an application of tribal law to a minority group of members and that they are entitled to equal protection under the law?
Will they collect the evidence of problems with the enrollment eligibility of the tribal leaders and prove that they are just as qualified to be members as some that will remain enrolled? Will they demand that all members must undergo review if any are to be disenrolled?
Will they compare this decision to other BIA/DOI decisions looking for inconsistency in the interpretation of tribal law, and thereby proving the arbitrary and capricious nature of the decision making?
This is an opportunity I hope gets exploited. The attorneys for the Nooksack should not follow the same pattern of previous appeals. They should not look at this disenrollment as an isolated action governed only by the laws of the tribe. The BIA relies on that approach and can argue that their decisions are reasonable when the scope is narrow.
Open the scope of review of their decisions to numerous disenrollments. Show that they are biased in favor of disenrollment. Show that the BIA explicitly chooses to enable tribal leaders to violate civil rights. Show that the tribal leaders are not entitled to deference by the deceitful and corrupt actions they use to eliminate tribal members using a standard that is not universally applied. Giving deference to tribal leaders who have unanswered allegations of corruption, dishonesty, violations of tribal law, or ongoing criminal investigations is an abuse of discretion.
Make the DOI withdraw their decision unless all tribal members are subject to the same standard of eligibility.
Advise all those who are to be disenrolled to phone in their appeal, state that reason why they dispute the disenrollment in specific terms, and to record the entire conversation with a reliable witness present who can sign a declaration that they observed the appeal and that the recording is reliable.
I pray for your success.
There needs to be hearings before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs! This is a disgrace!
ReplyDeleteDISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL!!!! this sounds eerily familiar to the first disenrollments at picayune as well....picayune HAD NO enrollment ordinance, even though the tribe had reinstituted by 1988, until years later...i foia'd all controlling documents from the bia, and when finally received them (the bia tried valiantly to block my foia by placing a HUGE fee on my request, which i paid and then had to request senator dianne feinstein's assistance to have returned) many were missing the central california bia rep, mrs rogers-davis, told me picayune was not even required to submit documents as a non-ira tribe...the picayune constitution has NO clause for dismembering ANY tribal citizen, nor did the submitted enrollment ordinance...as with nooksack, tribal members up for disenrollment from picayune WERE denied distributions from the tribe from federal grant programs, i.e. education grants, and elders denied such things as their birthday stipends, even though they had not had "hearings", or the results of their hearings had not been decided and released...the picayune constitution does have a clause saying that the icra WILL be upheld...what a travesty these corrupt disenrolling tribes are engaged in, and an insult to our ancestors, elders and future generations!
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