The Press Democrat has the full story on this here
Five Indigenous California tribes, including two based in Mendocino and Lake counties, are locked in a legal dispute with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office over renewing their gambling compacts with the state.
The outcome of the case, experts say, has potential implications for every California tribe that holds casino rights.
Blackfeet Law Enforcement Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigations on Thursday morning executed a federal search warrant at a residence owned by Tribal Chairman Timothy Davis, according to a news release.
Eight people were taken into tribal custody, and Blackfeet Law Enforcement Services said "the investigation remains open and ongoing."
Blackfeet Tribal Prosecutor Josh Lamson, said that despite some rumors, the chairman was not arrested.
"To my knowledge, he was not present," Lamson said.
Lamson said the eight individuals were arrested on tribal charges, not federal charges. Four of the eight people had pre-existing tribal warrants from earlier incidents and were arrested for allegedly selling small amounts of fentanyl to a witness, which Lamson said falls under a tribal charge of the criminal sale of dangerous drugs.
As Native American advocacy groups show depraved indifference to to octogenarians being thrown into the cold, and their homes stolen, noted attorney Gabriel Galanda was also left outside facin a warning for trespassing.
If what the corrupt Nooksack tribe was doing was just, wouldn’t it stand up to anything an attorney would have say? Why is the Nooksack acting under cover?
As our Nooksack 306 friend Michelle Roberts reports
Not much has changed since this Onell Soto article came out in 2007. KNOW BEFORE YOU GO.
 |
| Unbalanced Justice |
Critics say not all tribes are living up to the spirit of such agreements, and some lawyers say the system is rigged against them and their clients.
SEE: The late Richard Swan, was a victim of Pechanga Security guards BEATING...
The agreements with the state require tribes to waive sovereign immunity – the right of governments to be shielded from lawsuits – but the way that happens varies.
Thankful that my cousin Kent, who has written guest posts for me is back to writing. He also wrote a wonderful song on disenrollment you can watch on YOUTUBE
NO DUE PROCESS FOR DISENROLLED INDIANS
BY ‘aamokat ( Kent Appel)
On June 30, 2021 the
New York Times reported, “Bill Cosby was released from prison
Wednesday after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018
conviction for sexual assault, a dramatic reversal in one of the
first high-profile criminal trials of the #MeToo era.”
Last year
the state Supreme Court had ruled Cosby's prosecution violated
"principles of due process and fundamental fairness." The
state judges said, "prosecutors generally are bound by their
assurances, particularly when defendants rely to their detriment upon
those guarantees." This week the Unites States Supreme Court
decided to not hear the appeal of the state prosecutors thereby
letting the overturning of Mr. Cosby’s conviction stand.
The purpose of this article is not to comment on whether Mr. Cosby is guilty of being a sexual predator or not but instead it is to compare how Mr. Cosby was let out of jail because his rights of due process were violated and compare it to how disenrolled Native Americans were denied the same due process rights that are supposed to be afforded to all American citizens during the kangaroo court proceedings that resulted in our losing our citizenship in our tribal nation. OP: Ironically, Bill Cosby stood against DISENROLLMENT at Chukchansi, refusing to perform there.
In the early 2000s
one of our relatives who was serving on the Pechanga tribe’s
enrollment committee reportedly was served disenrollment papers from
certain fellow committee members against our extended family before
any evidence had even been submitted that would warrant opening an
investigation towards possible disenrollment. Our family member along
with other committee members had found evidence of bias by those
certain committee members against certain families when it came to
processing membership applications.
The tribal legal department and
even Indian legal services were no help in these matters and neither
was the tribal council. This first disenrollment challenge was not
allowed as obviously nothing had been shown that would be cause for
disenrollment.
Fast forward to 2005
when we the Hunter family of Pechanga were served with disenrollment
papers to appear in front of the enrollment committee. At the
hearings we were not allowed legal representation to appear with us,
we were not told why the applications we had originally submitted for
membership did not prove tribal membership even though the
disenrollment procedures clearly stated the committee was required to
do so.
The committee said nothing about why were being disenrolled
and the only so called evidence against us were statements by three
elders who said we didn’t belong. Not surprisingly one of the
statements was by the brother of two of the committee members our
family member had accused of wrong doing. Those committee members
were allowed to rule on our case even though any fair and reasonable
legal proceeding would not have allowed them to do so due to conflict
of interest and prejudice against our family. A pure case of
unfairness and lack of due process!
We also were not allowed copies
of the transcripts of any of the disenrollment proceedings, we were
not allowed to record video or even audio of any of the proceedings,
and we were not allowed to even take notes as we were not allowed to
have pens or pencils in the hearing room!
Related: Are Native Americans Entitled to Civil Rights Protections?
We were given a
month to turn in documented proof of tribal membership which all had to
be certified or notarized while the statements against us were not
certified or notarized. By the way, the statements against our
membership, again the only so called negative evidence, was
contradicted by statements by three other elders who said they have
always recognized us as Pechanga tribal members. Their positive
statements confirmed what the documentation of census records,
probate records for our land allotment, as we are still allottees on
the reservation, and what other documentation showed.
Ironic that Bill
Cosby was convicted as a sexual predator but his conviction was
overturned because of unfairness of the proceedings while we lost our
citizenship in our tribal nation through disenrollment and one of the
statements against us was a hand written note from a convicted child
molester that was sent from prison where he was serving out a seven
year sentence.
So Cosby who was likely guilty gets set free while we
who are innocent get to pound sand.
How fair is that?!
MARCH 2004 the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indian's Enrollment Committee authorized the first mass disenrollment of a Pechanga Family, the descendants of Manuela Miranda. This was purely a POLITICAL action, as a cousin to Miranda, Frances Miranda was one who voted to disenroll, her OWN FAMILY.
John Gomez Jr found the Pechanga Enrollment Committee was shuffling papers from the Tosobol family applictions. The EC didn't want 80 or so rightful candidates to belong to the tribe, even though their Munoa cousins were in. An excerpt from a Vince Beiser piece on the disenrollment is here Pechanga's Paper Trail of Tears
The disenrollment of Manuela Miranda descendants happened just before tribal elections, the timing was NOT coincidental. The same will happened two years after this disenrollment, with the expulsion of the Paulina Hunter descendants, which we will document in a subsequent post.
My cousin Kent Appel, whose song Paper Genocide, laments the disenrollment, lays out the tribe's constitution on this:
Article V of the Temecula Band of Luiseno Mission Indians’ constitution and bylaws, sometimes referred to as the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians (title from the Band’s constitution and bylaws preamble), states the following
“IT SHALL BE THE DUTY OF ALL ELECTED OFFICERS OF THE BAND TO UPHOLD AND ENFORCE THE CONSTITUTION, BYLAWS, AND ORDINANCES OF THE TEMECULA BAND OF LUISENO MISSION INDIANS; AND, ALSO TO UPHOLD THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS OF EACH MEMBER WITHOUT MALICE OR PREJUDICE.”
So how was allowing biased enrollment committee members with a clear conflict of interest who were very close relatives of key witnesses against the disenrolled and who made statements prior to the disenrollments such as, “it doesn’t matter what you turn in you are being disenrolled anyway,” not a violation of the Band’s equal protection clause under Article V and how did the families get due process?
GOOD QUESTION
And excerpt here but the full article at NONDOC
n 2016, LeEtta Osborne-Sampson, a council representative of the Seminole Nation who is Black, approached some colleagues about a disturbing picture hung on the wall of the Mekusukey Mission, which is used as the Seminole Nation council house and courthouse.
“It was a Black man sitting under a tree,” Osborne-Sampson said. “This Black man had a cloak over his head, a noose around his neck and his hands bound and his feet bound.”
Osborne-Sampson went to the Seminole Nation chief at the time, Leonard Harjo, and asked for the painting to be removed.
“You can’t get that removed,” she says Harjo told her. “It’s history.”
 |
| Human Rights Abusing China Calls out U.S. Again |
China should know, as we've seen them doing this to Uighurs. And this century in Native America, it's the paper genocide BY Tribes via disenrollment China said something similar in 2011 China Tells U.S. to Quit as Human Rights Judge
Native News Online has the story:
Former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer will do prison time for a scheme to bilk the Native American tribe out of $60 million.
Devon Archer on Monday was sentenced to a year and a day for attempting to defraud one of the poorest tribes in the nation, the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota.
From DOJ Press Release
The hatred and depraved indifference has reared it's ugly head from the Nooksack Tribe. The news from the Pacific Northwest is that the delayed evictions of elderly Nooksack 306 are resuming.
 |
| 14 day Eviction Notice |
In June 2020, we asked if Disenrolling Tribes Fudging the Numbers for CARES Act At last nights State of the Union
“We’re gonna go after the criminals who stole billions of relief money meant for small business and millions of Americans,” Biden said during his State of the Union address.
My compatriots from the disenrolled Saginaw Chippewa have responded to my retrospective on their disenrollment and asked me to post this. Of course I will. Won't you share it to help?
Rest in Peace Aunt Dolly Holzhausen who always supported Original Pechanga Blog on her Facebook. If you need a picture or have what disenrollment means spelled out, HERE IT IS
They are real people, proud people. Strong people, fighters for what is right and just, walking the path with dignity and honor. As indigenous people they follow the Grand Father’s teachings, believe that we are all interconnected, and that through tradition and culture that we gain our strength.