The Obama administration is making it easier for some Indian tribes to obtain federal recognition, addressing a longstanding grievance of many Native Americans. The new regulation updates a 37-year-old process that has been roundly criticized as broken because of the many years and mounds of paperwork that typically went into each application.
But the effort to address those criticisms generated a backlash of its own, with some lawmakers and existing tribes with casino operations complaining that the administration's original proposals set the bar too low.
The Obama administration made changes in the final rule that answers many of those concerns, but not all. Kevin Washburn, an assistant secretary at the Department of Interior, plans to announce the regulation Monday during a National Congress of American Indians conference in Minnesota.
Federal acknowledgment means a tribe is treated as a nation within a nation, able to set up its own government, legal system, and taxes and fees. Recognition also brings critical federal investments in medical care, housing and education. It also can lead to tribes opening casinos in future years through a separate approval process.
Washburn told The Associated Press that the regulatory changes will greatly enhance transparency by letting the public see most of the documents submitted by the petitioning groups via the Internet.
The changes will also give tribal groups facing rejection the chance to take their case to an administrative judge before a final determination is made.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the new regulations for tribal recognition "makes good on a promise to our First Americans to clarify, expedite and honor a meaningful process for federal acknowledgment."
The most scrutinized changes will be the new criteria that must be met for recognition to occur.
Indian groups seeking recognition will no longer have to show that outside parties identified them as an Indian entity dating back to 1900. Washburn said the requirement clashed with the reality of the times. Many Indians were attempting to hide their identity from outside sources out of fear they would be discriminated against, or worse. "They would have been crazy not to have," said Washburn, a member of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma.
Some federally recognized tribes had urged that the requirement be kept.
"We cannot understand why a legitimate petitioner could not produce external documentation of its existence," Robert Martin, chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, testified during a recent congressional hearing.
