The Pechanga Indian Removal Acts

The explosion of Indian Gaming in California has lead to some acts that tribes such as Pechanga Band of Temecula would like to keep as "family secrets." Removing Indians from tribes, pronouncing them non-Indians, had the same effect as Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Acts had in 1830's America. Get the Indians we don't want or like out of the way.

The Pechanga Indian Removal Acts

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Shadow Government Attempting to Disenroll and Banish Tribal Members
Current mood: determined

SNOQUALMIE, Wash., April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The honorary, non-elected
Chief of the Snoqualmie people, Jerry Enick, along with a small faction of
loyalists, has overthrown the Constitutionally elected Snoqualmie Indian
tribal government. The Snoqualmie Indian Tribe is a federally recognized
Indian tribe with 637 enrolled members as of December 31, 2006.

After months of attempting to reach an internal resolution of this
tribal government crisis, the Chairman of the Tribe, Bill T Sweet is
speaking out. "For the good of the Tribe and our elders, I am taking this
issue public," said Chairman Sweet. "We cannot stand idly by and let the
Tribe's future be hijacked by a handful of people and their non-Indian
supporters."

The dispute has been ongoing since last fall, but only recently came to
a head. Chairman Sweet has been barred from Tribal Council meetings since
August 16, 2007, when the honorary Chief issued a decree suspending the
Chairman and certain members of the Tribal Council elected at the Tribe's
May 12, 2007 general meeting. In September 2007, the honorary Chief called
for new elections and, at a disputed meeting, seated new tribal council
members.

The Tribe's Constitution only allows for May elections and vests no
power in the honorary Chief to control the government. The Chairman has not
been lawfully removed from office, but has been precluded from conducting
the duties of his office. Enick's move is nothing less than a coup.

The dispute boiled over last month when the Enick faction issued
disenrollment letters to 40-60 tribal members, including the elected
members of the Tribal Council and their families. Earlier this week,
Enick's faction provided notice of an April 27, 2008 meeting where they
will seek to "banish" dissenters from the Tribe's land. Enick is operating
outside the law, but it unclear whether -- or how -- he can be stopped.

"We tried for months to resolve this dispute internally or through
mediation," said Chairman Sweet. "Enick's group refused to meet. He had the
locks changed on the Tribal offices and threatened tribal members that
supported the elected government. The disenrollments and banishments go too
far. The situation is deteriorating rapidly."

The Tribe does not have a court system. So, the Chairman and the other
elected members of the Tribal Council turned to the U.S. Bureau of Indian
Affairs for help. However, the Bureau has refused to step in.

"The BIA Regional Director told me as recently as April 14th that I am
still the Chairman," said Sweet, "but he won't put those words in writing.
Then the BIA Superintendent in Everett takes actions to support the
unlawful Enick group. The situation is unacceptable."

The Tribe's Casino is set to open later this fall. Chairman Sweet
believes the Enick group's power grab is related to the Casino. "This is
all about Casino dollars and who gets to control them." The Chairman is
worried that Enick group's actions will threaten the Tribe's ability to
open the Casino on time. His fears appear well-founded.

At a meeting with the Bureau in Portland, Oregon in March 2008, the
Chairman learned that although he has been precluded from attending
meetings, Enick's faction has been using his name to obtain Federal
funding. "When we met with the Bureau last month, they showed me a grant
agreement signed by the Tribal Administrator 'on behalf of Bill T Sweet as
Tribal Chairman' on February 15, 2008," recounted Chairman Sweet. "I
couldn't believe it -- I haven't been allowed to attend or lead meetings
since August 2007, yet they are using my name without my knowledge or
permission to obtain Federal dollars. Enick's shadow government is trying
to have it both ways."

Despite the documents indicating irregularities to obtain Federal
monies, the Bureau has not taken any action to stop the Enick faction. "The
Bureau is turning a blind-eye to us," said Chairman Sweet. Without a tribal
court to hold people accountable and with no action from the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, Enick's group realizes it can act without fear of any
consequences. Chairman Sweet describes the situation as "outrageous."

"We are trying to reclaim the Snoqualmie tribal government in a manner
that best meets the needs of the Snoqualmie people and to run it according
to its Constitution," said Chairman Sweet. "We have no choice but to take
this issue public. We have no other way to reach out to the Snoqualmie
people."




SOURCE Ater Wynne LLP for Snoqualmie Indian Tribe

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Blood Quantums
Category: Blogging

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz6jpYIq0jk

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National Congress of American Indians- Ambassador
Category: Blogging

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkYpajMjAQM

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Interview 1 on Enrollment Issue
Category: Blogging

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MywHE6Nt4Fg

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Freedmen Headed to Capitol Hill

http://www.joplinglobe.com/statenews/local_story_266235452.html

Oklahoma: Freedmen issue on detour to Capitol Hill

—
The Associated Press
TULSA, Okla. — A dispute involving race and tribal identity that was supposed to play out in the courts now seems headed for Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers want the country's second-largest Indian tribe stripped of $300 million in federal money.
U.S. Rep. Diane Watson, a California Democrat who claims Indian blood and ties to Oklahoma, is demanding the Cherokee Nation reinstate 2,800 descendants of the tribe's former black slaves, known as freedmen. She calls a March election that booted the freedmen descendants from the tribe "ethnic cleansing" and doesn't want to wait on the courts to decide the matter, a process that could take years.
The tribe is digging in to fight the legislation, and its chief, Chad Smith, has called Watson's bill a "scorched-earth" policy aimed at hurting the poorest and sickest of the nation's 270,000 members.
Neither side shows signs of giving up ground as lawmakers are expected to have a hearing on the matter next week in Washington.
At stake are millions of federal dollars for health clinics, Head Start programs, elderly care and housing assistance for the Tahlequah-based tribe. More than 6,000 nation employees could lose their jobs, touching off a ripple effect that would economically devastate northeastern Oklahoma. Health care to 126,000 patients would be axed.
"If the Cherokee Nation were to fold, I'd be with it," said David Rabon Comingdeer, a 15-year employee of the nation. "It would be like our whole world just fell out from under us."
But to Watson, those are consequences the nation should have thought of before the election was called.
"We can't even fund education properly or health care properly," said Watson, whose bill has 23 co-sponsors, including support from Congressional Black Caucus lawmakers. "Why should we fund this kind of disenfranchisement?"
Watson wants Chief Smith and his supporters "to come to their senses and see this is throwing out the blacks, and using federal dollars to do it."
"I stand on the law, I stand on what's right, and I'm not going to massage it for phony reasons," she said.
For decades, descendants of freed Cherokee slaves fought to reclaim their citizenship, even though they were adopted into the tribe in 1866 under a treaty with the U.S. government.
A ruling last year by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court held that the Cherokee constitution assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship.
That led to a petition drive for a ballot measure to determine who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
In March, nearly 77 percent of Cherokee voters decided in a special election to amend the nation's constitution to remove the freedmen descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls.
Critics of the vote said then it was hardly a mandate because only a fraction of the nation's tribal citizens — about 9,000 — cast ballots.
For months, the matter has been tied up in the federal and tribal courts. Introduction of Watson's bill in June escalated the issue.
Some Oklahoma congressmen, such as Rep. Dan Boren, say the chances Watson's bill will become law are "almost nonexistent," but acknowledge such legislation, if successful, would have far-reaching consequences on the state's economy.
Recent history shows that her bill has a chance of gaining traction. In 2000, after the Seminole Nation voted to oust freedmen descendants from its tribe, the government cut off federal programs and refused to recognize its election. The freedmen were later allowed back in the tribe.
"When you design a legislative bill to hurt the most vulnerable and weak of the population, the young people in their Head Starts and schools, the infirm and frail in our clinics, then that truly is a scorched-earth policy," Smith said in an interview this week with The Associated Press. "I anticipate this is going to be a long, hard battle, and the sad thing is, it doesn't have to be."
Smith expressed surprise some lawmakers took up the issue, and has said the March election had nothing to do with race and everything to do with common heritage. He wants the matter to be decided in the courts.
"This is not my choice," Smith said. "Three-thousand Cherokees, by their own initiative, signed a petition and it was brought to a vote. It was the people's decision."
But freedmen descendants, such as Marilyn Vann, say the tribe is resorting to scare tactics to defend itself, and welcomed the "additional actions of Congress and additional court cases which continue to pound this on the table."
"We're the little people to Mr. Smith," said Vann, president of the Oklahoma City-based Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. "We're not supposed to go to Congress, only Mr. Smith and his supporters are allowed."
Results of the election are on hold pending the legal challenges, but if allowed to stand, descendants such as Tahlequah resident Charlene White would lose tribal benefits, including medical coverage.
That means she would have to find a way to pay for the $200 in groceries the tribe provides her each month, as well as the expensive medical care for her glaucoma now covered at a local clinic.
"It would be a big hardship on me," she said.
But White says she's fed up with the war of words over her right to be recognized as a Cherokee citizen and wants to wait on the courts, whatever their decision.
"I know where I came from," said White, who can trace her lineage back seven generations. "They can take away everything today if they want, but I'm still a freedman."

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Blogs and Sites about Disenrollment at Pechanga and Other Rezs

Please take a look at the blogs and websites listed below and ask your friends to do the same.   Public pressure on politicians is what we need to help gain our civil rights back.

www.pechanga.info

http://blog.myspace.com/sonserrie

www.tribalcorruption.com

http://blog.myspace.com/paulinahunterofpechanga

http://originalpechanga.blogspot.com

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Bury My Heart at Temecula: The Pechanga Massacres

Please 20 faxes a day will help get the message out.

Bury My Heart in Temecula: Pechanga Massacres

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Disenrolled Tribal Members Against Romero Bill

From Paulina's blog:   http://blog.myspace.com/paulinahunterofpechanga

Dis-enrolled tribal members oppose Romero bill

Capitol Weekly
By Malcolm Maclachlan

Dis-enrolled tribal members are raising concerns that a bill from Senator Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, could result in them being kicked off of reservations.

Tribes say the bill, SB 331, is needed to help them enforce their property rights and tribal sovereignty. Such protections are particularly needed in rural areas where non-tribal law-enforcement responses can be slow, supporters say.

Titled "Unlawful entry: tribal land," the bill would create a new infraction against non tribal members entering "Indian lands" without permission from the tribe. Romero wrote the bill on behalf of the Barona Band of Mission Indians, which operates a casino and resort northeast of San Diego. Tribes could issue a fine of up to $250 for a first offense and $500 for a second offense. A representative from the Barona Tribe did not return calls seeking comment by press time.

Romero's communications director, Russell Lopez, said that her office is in talks with several interested parties about the bill. He said this includes at least one utility that has concerns about their ability to perform maintenance on Indian lands. Romero is not ready to talk yet about any possible amendments, he added.

However, many of those on tribal lands are recently dis-enrolled tribal members, according to John Gomez Jr., a dis-enrolled member of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. He fears SB 331 will become just another tool for Indians to use against other Indians--and could result in hundreds of dis-enrolled members being evicted their own property if it lies on Indian lands.

"It could be used to fine people if they visit their own homes or families," Gomez said.

Gomez said he is one of about 400 people who have been dis-enrolled from the Pechanga Tribe since 2004. The dis-enrollments happened in two groups, just before tribal elections in 2004 and 2006. They reflect lingering animosities between families and individuals that have been exacerbated by the flood of gaming money, he claimed, raising the stakes in longstanding power struggles. The number of tribal dis-enrollments across the state has increased greatly since the advent of tribal casinos, he said.

"Is it a coincidence?" Gomez said. "I don't think so."

Representatives of the Pechanga tribe dismiss these claims, saying the members were only dis-enrolled after a years-long process that found they did not have legitimate tribal lineages. During the evaluation period, they said, these members received tribal benefits.

In January, the Pechanga Tribal Council sent a letter to every member of the Legislature seeking to refute "sensationalist claims" made by dis-enrolled members. The letter claims that since the tribes financial fortunes started to rise in the mid-1990s, they were inundated by claims from thousands of people who were not legitimate tribal members. It also cited a 2005 California Appeals Court case in which the court declined to get involved in determinations over "Who is a Pechanga?"

Gomez and other dis-enrolled Pechangas have sent letters to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Bureau of Indians Affairs and others asking them to look into the dis-enrollments. This includes a call for the BIA not to recognize the Pechanga tribal elections.

They also conducted an unsuccessful letter-writing campaign aimed at sinking the amended Pechanga gaming compact. That compact--SB 903 by Senator Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles--passed out of the Senate on a 23-8 vote in April and now awaits a hearing in the Assembly.

Whether they have increased or not, tribal dis-enrollments have been in the news lately. In March, the Jamul Indian band bulldozed the homes of two non-tribal members that lay on tribal land--and sat in the way of a casino the tribe is building. The Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians dis-enrolled an undisclosed number of members in November.

In 2003, the Enterprise Rancheria kicked out 72 of its over 200 members after a dispute. One of these former members, Robert Edwards, wrote a letter to Romero this week opposing SB 331 because it "bestows authority to Indian Tribes to engage in the victimization of Indians." The letter warned that the bill could lead to some dis-enrolled members being made homeless. Edwards is now the chairman of an opposition group called Indians of Enterprise No. 1.

Edwards said that over 3,000 tribal members around the state have been dis-enrolled since 1999. Meanwhile, tribes also have refused to let in many legitimate tribal descendants who tried to join tribes in order to keep them from sharing in gaming money. He has been calling for the Legislature to include references to the Indian Civil Rights Act into the amended gaming compacts, which he said would aid dis-enrolled Indians to suing in state and federal court.

Meanwhile, gaming watchdog Cheryl Schmit, director of Stand Up for California, sent a letter to Romero last week questioning the constitutionality of SB 331 as it currently is written. The bill lacks an adequate definition of "Indian lands," she argued, and conflicts with federal law on the matter. Unless the bill is amended to comply with federal standards, she said, any tickets given to trespassers under a resulting law could not be enforced.

"If I got a citation on tribal lands, I could safely wad it up and throw it away," Schmit said.

"Indian lands" now cover a patchwork of reservations, private property and new lands being purchased by tribes. For instance, she said, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians has purchased 1,100 acres in 11 different deals since 2000.
Schmit said she has been seeking legal opinions on the bill. The California State Sheriffs' Association has taken a neutral position, she said, while the California District Attorneys Association will evaluate the bill at their mid-July meeting. The San Diego County district attorney and San Diego County Sheriffs Department support SB 331.

Other states also are struggling with tribal-lands issues. Most notably is New York, where Governor Eliot Spitzer is trying to collect $200 million in cigarette and gasoline taxes he said are owed by tribes in the state. Some in the New York Legislature have estimated the state loses over $400 million in tobacco taxes not collected on reservations each year.

In April, leaders of the Seneca Nation retaliated by beginning to count cars on the New York State Thruway that runs through the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation south of Buffalo. They have said they intend to charge the state government $1 per car for the use of their land.

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Pechanga: Are they going to be responsible for the end of sovereignty
Category: News and Politics

Original Pechanga's Blog

Pechanga leading the beginning of the END of Sovereignty?

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