[Note from Deb Cruz, FAIN Issue Lead: This failure of the courts to uphold the Mashpee Wampanoag right to put land in trust is the first step in termination of the First Indian Tribe/Nation to greet and support settlers arriving on the Mayflower 1620. This is just the beginning not only for Mashpee Wampanoag, but also for other Nations across the U.S. Once the trust land process is refused, the courts positioning then leads to the withdrawal of other support and leaves the Tribes/Nations at tremendous risk. One only has to look back at the results of the Tribes/Nations statuses from the 1950s termination era: special look at what happened to Menominee and Ponca Nations.
This can be rectified in spite of the courts, through Congress, as the article HR 312 has passed the House, but has been sitting in the Senate since May 2019. The push from here will be to contact Senators and get them to start working on the bill.
Please take time to watch the video!!]
The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe cannot restore its homelands through the land-into-trust process, a federal appeals court ruled last week in a major blow to plans to open a casino in Massachusetts.In a unanimous opinion issued barely a month after arguments in the case, the 1st Circuit Court of Appealssaid the tribe failed to show that it was “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934. The tribe did not gain formal recognition of its status until 2007, long after that date.As a result, the Bureau of Indian Affairs cannot go against the “unambiguous” language of the Indian Reorganization Act, a three-judge panel of the court determined. The 22-page decision affects the tribe’s proposed casino site, as well as its headquarters, some 321 acres altogether.
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