From the first Indigenous cabinet secretary to the entire U.S. government's approach to meaningful, collaborative relationships with Tribal nations, President Joe Biden's commitment to Indian Country is unmatched. Still, an office in the U.S. Department of the Interior is quietly working on policy that threatens that commitment and a federal promise to protect Indigenous homelands.
President Biden has the opportunity to reaffirm this promise at the recently announced White House Tribal Nations Summit taking place on Dec. 6 and 7. Instead of allowing unelected bureaucrats force policy changes that would set the relationship between Tribal Nations and their federal and state partners back decades, the president should listen to the bipartisan voices that oppose Interior's policy, yet continue to be ignored.
To Indigenous peoples, our traditional beliefs and ways are rooted in kinship with our ancestral and historic homelands. The federal government has committed to recognizing those age-old traditions, while supporting the economic sovereignty of Tribes through gaming revenues, which are critical funding sources for Tribal government services for our people.
However, because of a misguided approach to reversing historically paternalistic policies toward Tribal Nations, the Interior Department is finalizing a set of rules that would allow Tribes to acquire lands anywhere and open casinos far beyond their homelands.
When Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 35 years ago, it rightfully sought to limit the expansion of Indian gaming beyond Tribal ancestral and historic homelands. The law makes a few limited exceptions for Tribes that did not have a land base in 1988 to obtain equal footing with those that did.
In 2012, the Obama administration implemented a "free market" policy that significantly eased gaming and related trust-land acquisition restrictions. The intention was to support Tribal economic development and self-governance, but that policy has since proven to be vast overcorrection that created negative consequences for Indigenous peoples.
The Biden administration is on the brink of doubling down on this misguided policy by allowing Tribes to acquire land for casinos in areas to which they have no historical connection, and are in many instances, the ancestral homelands of other Indigenous peoples. These activities undermine the kinship structures on which our Indigenous cultures rely and the time-honored territorial integrity of Tribal Nations.
Allowing Tribes to open casinos on the ancestral homelands of other Tribes will hurt inter-Tribal and Tribal-state relations throughout our country. It will create a corporate "arms race" by allowing Tribes to site or relocate casinos in urban areas on lands without any ancestral or historical connection to those places. That is bad policy.
Tribes, like any other sovereign, are duty-bound to defend against any other government's improper intrusion into their ancestral homelands or threat to their people's welfare. Now, Tribes that have historically been political allies in the face of centuries of colonial and federal efforts to eradicate Indigenous peoples are becoming enemies.
At a time when states and Tribes are just beginning to collaborate and heal from the harms this country has inflicted upon Indigenous peoples over time, we strongly oppose this neo-colonial policy that further divides us from one other and from our homelands.
To keep its promise to Tribal Nations, the White House must listen to the Indigenous peoples impacted by this policy, not bureaucrats in Washington. President Biden must stop this policy that will cause casino gaming to cascade nationally without any bounds, hurting historically marginalized Indigenous peoples the hardest.
Russell Attebery is the chair of the Karuk Tribe.
Jeff Grubbe is the immediate past chair of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.
Marshall Pierite is the chair of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
