Cherokee Nation denies it helped enable trafficking of migrant children

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. has refuted allegations that Cherokee Federal, a division of the tribe’s business arm, Cherokee Nation Businesses, has played a role in the sex trafficking of migrant children at a California emergency intake facility.
"For over two years, Cherokee Nation and Cherokee Federal have been wrongly and unjustly smeared through unhinged conspiracy theories spread by a select few," Hoskin said.

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded Cherokee Federal a $706 million contract to process unaccompanied children at a facility in Pomona, California, and reunite them with families and/or sponsors.

Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA,) Bill Cassidy (R-LA,) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) hosted a roundtable discussion in Washington July 9 in which HHS whistleblowers Deborah White and Tara Rodas accused the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and Cherokee Federal of prioritizing “speed over safety” in releasing unaccompanied minors.

They cited instances in which children were turned over to poorly or entirely unvetted “sponsors,” including criminals and, in one case, a member of the violent MS13 gang, despite an urgent “do not release advisory” which Rodas sent to HHS officials and Cherokee Federal staff.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, participated in that roundtable. During a recent community meeting in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, he denied that Cherokee Federal engaged in placing children in unsafe situations.

"During that hearing, I was talking about HHS and their decision-making and some of my colleagues were talking about Cherokee Federal," Lankford said. "I think that was unfair of how that was pulled in, because that wasn't their job for the final selection."

Cherokee Federal's job was to take care of the children after they crossed the border, Lankford said.

The New York Times in 2023 reported that the Biden administration had lost track of 85,000 children.

The Center for Public Integrity says that figure is misleading and only represents the number of children who could not be reached during follow-up welfare checks.

Senators to Agriculture Department: Act swiftly to restore food deliveries to Indian reservations

A bipartisan group of senators is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, to address severe delays and issues in a federal food distribution program that delivers food to eligible households on Indian reservations and other designated areas. The program is known as the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, or FDPIR.

“Families that participate in this program do so at the expense of being eligible to participate in other federal food assistance, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),” reads an August 23 letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack and signed by Senator Jeffrey Merkley (D-OR) and six Senate colleagues.

“Further, many Tribal households choose to participate in FDPIR over SNAP because they do not have access to grocery stores so families have limited options for assistance, should they face delays in their FDPIR deliveries.”

In March, the USDA consolidated the food delivery contractors to a single contractor in Kansas City, Missouri, over the objection of tribal leaders. Since then, deliveries have been sporadic, at best.

A tribal program director on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity.

“The program usually serves 1,100-plus people a month; about a hundred of them are elders,” she said. “We usually get four to five trucks of food a month. But our May trucks were delayed, and by June, we ran out of meat and frozen foods. In July, we didn’t get our trucks until the end of the month.”

The FDPIR is billed as a supplemental food program, but for many families on the reservations, these deliveries make up their entire monthly food supply.

“We normally receive ours the third Monday of every month,” she added. “But in July, we didn't get our trucks until the end of the month, and we’re still waiting on our August deliveries.”

Some tribe members have the option of shopping off-reservation, using monthly, electronically-delivered SNAP benefits – that is, if they have transportation and can afford high supermarket prices.

“We also have a mobile vendor,” she said. “They come around the day before SNAP benefits come out. They charge whatever they want.”

Senate lawmakers have given the USDA until September 9 to report and document reasons for the delays. The USDA says it is working with the Missouri contractor to fix the backlog but tribal leaders say they aren’t working fast enough.

The Native American Caucus, meeting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, opened its first meeting earlier this week with a prayer.

Amelia Flores, who chairs the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona, introduced herself in the Mojave language and called on "Father, Creator" to bless Democrat leaders.

"We ask that you grant them wisdom and that our spirits will remain in a positive attitude throughout the next four days here. … We are gung-ho for our vice president and newly elect, with your favor, the first woman president of the United States," she said.

More than 150 Native American delegates representing tribes across the U.S. participated in the convention this week. They brought a unique set of concerns that include safeguarding tribal sovereignty, clarifying their relationship with the federal government and overcoming voting barriers.

Native vote power

Speaking with VOA in July, Association on American Indian Affairs Director Shannon O'Loughlin, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, emphasized that Native Americans have become an increasingly important voting bloc.

"If we do show up, and we do vote locally and nationally, we have the power to change the direction of the candidates and who's chosen," O'Loughlin said to VOA in July. "We saw that in the last election."

That said, she notes some states' efforts to discourage Native voters. In 2020, for example, the Native vote in Arizona helped swing the election in Biden's favor. Two years later, Republican lawmakers passed a law requiring Arizonans to prove U.S. citizenship, a hardship for many Native voters.

Lower courts rejected the law, and the Republican National Committee has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to decide in time for the state to begin printing ballots.

A look at the numbers

According to the Native American Rights Fund, out of nearly 6.8 million American Indians and Alaskan Natives, 4.7 million are older than 18 and registered to vote.

It is commonly assumed that Native American voters favor the Democratic Party. But some studies show otherwise:

Oklahoma State University researchers in 2016 conducted an internet poll in which 46% of Native American respondents identified as Democrats, 26% as Republicans and 25% as independents.

A 2022 Midterm Voter Election Poll by the African American Research Collaborative showed similar numbers but also revealed that Native American voters are less likely to believe either political party is truly committed to advancing their issues and priorities.

"We obviously want to look at the numbers, which are very interesting and important, but I think what's more telling at the end of the day is the fact that Native Americans are not really attached and don't have a solidified relationship with either party," said Gabriel Sanchez, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institute.

"Native American voters overwhelmingly tell us they're not really partisan in how they approach voting decisions. It's more a campaign season to campaign season evaluation of which party they perceive to be better for their communities," he noted.

Sanchez told VOA that Native Americans are usually represented, at least symbolically, in political conventions. He observed, however, little Native presence at the Republican convention in mid-July.

In contrast, Native Americans showed up in force at the Democratic convention this week to support Kamala Harris' bid for the White House, and they heard from prominent Democrats, including Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), the vice presidential nominee.

"We have 11 sovereign nations, Anishinaabe and Dakota, and our history in Minnesota, just like the rest across this country, is dark," he said. "But in Minnesota, we've acknowledged it's not just enough to admire a problem.

"What are you going to do to make a difference? What are you going to do to partner? What are you going to do to acknowledge the first Americans? And what are you going to do to understand that our state of Minnesota is stronger because of our 11 sovereign nations?"

Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) expressed solidarity with Native voters, noting that Black and Native Americans face similar challenges "with a justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent, with a health care system where literally the lowest life expectancy in the nation is Native American and African American men."

But will these messages resonate with Native voters, particularly those registered as Independents?

"An issue that's nowhere near on the radar of either party's platform is missing and murdered Indigenous women," Sanchez told VOA, citing a First Nations Development Institute survey of Native Americans showing this to be a top concern.

"And I think if either the Democrat or Republican Party can embrace that particular issue, it will go a long way."

Researchers debunk myths about ballot collection on Indian reservations

A study by the University of Utah’s College of Social & Behavioral Science reveals that ballot collection on Native American reservations effectively lowers voting barriers without evidence of vote fraud.

Ballot collection is a system by which voters rely on third parties to collect and submit their absentee or mail-in ballots. Distances, poor mail service, bad roads and lack of transportation mean that Native Americans on rural reservations rely more on ballot harvesting than other voter blocs.

Despite its benefits, ballot collection faces opposition and restrictions in several states, including Utah, where it has been banned. Critics argue it is vulnerable to fraud, though the study finds no documented cases of such issues.

A father-son pair of researchers analyzed data from the conservative Heritage Foundation. They found that voter fraud related to ballot collection is extremely rare, occurring only in 0.00006% of votes cast – that is, six cases of proven fraud for every 10 million votes cast in the U.S.

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Child rights advocate: boarding school abuses continue globally

The U.S. Department of the Interior recently released the second volume of its investigation into the federal Indian boarding school system, revealing that at least 900 Native American children died in these schools after having been forcibly separated from their families, communities and cultural heritage.

An editorial in The Hill this week argues that residential schools, including modern orphanages and children’s homes, still cause harm across the world today.

“Residential education in many cases fulfills the definition of an institution and causes similar harm to children,” writes contributing author and British child rights advocate Enrique Restoy. “Children in residential facilities face an increased risk of abuse and often have a damaged sense of belonging and emotional health.”

Adding to the problem, Restoy says boarding schools are typically regulated by government ministries of education and often located in remote locations without proper oversight, which “intrinsically lends itself to students enduring abusive practices of various kinds from staff, including emotional, physical and sexual abuse.”

The writer calls for a shift in support towards keeping children within their families while providing education, rather than separating them for care and schooling.

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Clergy want role in boarding school truth and reconciliation process

In a related story, as Congress considers legislation that would create a federal commission to address the trauma from Native American boarding schools, U.S. Catholic bishops are calling for an amendment that would allow religious communities a role in the process.

The proposed Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act would set up a commission and various advisory committees to investigate and acknowledge past injustices at these schools. The bishops argue that since many of these schools were run by Catholic and Protestant groups representatives from these religious communities should also be included.

The bishops' letter, sent on July 25 to key congressional sponsors and signed by several high-ranking church officials, stresses that including religious communities is crucial for comprehensive healing and reconciliation. They also advocate for voluntary cooperation rather than broad subpoena powers, as they claim to have already been transparent and cooperative.

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Cheyenne Arapaho writer honored as part of unique literary project

Native American author Tommy Orange has already begun thinking about a new novel that none of us will live to read.

Orange, a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma born and raised in California, has been selected as the next writer for the Future Library Project (FLP).

An initiative launched by Scottish artist Katie Paterson in 2014, FLP aims to collect an original work by a popular writer every year for a century. The works will remain unread and unpublished until 2114, when they will be printed on paper made from trees the artist planted in Norway a decade ago.

Orange is the author of two novels exploring urban Native American identity. His 2019 debut novel “There There,” an examination of urban Native identity, earned him a Pulitzer nomination; his follow-up novel “Wandering Stars,” is on this year’s Booker Prize longlist.

He tells the Guardian newspaper that being involved in the Future Library means he still has hopes “that we will have a world to live in with books in it in a hundred years, or 90 I guess, and I think I need to keep that hope alive, need to actively cultivate that kind of hope in the longevity of the human project.”

Orange isn’t sure what kind of book he will write for the FLP and wonders what kind of reception it will get from critics in the 22nd Century.

“I think it’s a little scary writing for people who will most definitely deem us stupid and inferior in many ways just as when we look back a hundred years, we can see clearly all the problems we had just being decent human beings,” he said.

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Coastal tribes in the Pacific Northwest experience some of the most severe effects of climate change — from rising seas to severe heat — but face an array of bureaucratic barriers to access government funds meant to help them adapt, a report released Monday found.

The tribes are leaders in combating climate change in their region. But a report by the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative says as tribes seek money for specific projects to address climate change repercussions, such as relocating a village threatened by rising waters, they often can't provide the matching funds that many grants require or the necessary staff or struggle with stringent application requirements. If they do get funding, it's often a small amount that can only be used for very specific projects when this work is typically much more holistic, the report found.

"Trying to do projects by piecing together grants that all have different requirements and different strings attached, without staff capacity is a challenge," Robert Knapp, environmental planning manager at the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in northwest Washington, said in the report.

The collaborative, funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, spent two years holding listening sessions with 13 tribes along the Pacific Coast of Oregon and Washington, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound. The communities face significant challenges from coastal flooding and erosion, rising stream temperatures, declining snowpack, severe heat events and increasing wildfire risk.

In addition to funding challenges, those interviewed also described not having enough staff to adequately respond to climate change as well as sometimes not being able to partner with state and local governments and universities in this work because of their remote locations. They also said it can be hard to explain to people who don’t live in their communities about the impact climate change has on the tribes.

But as they work to restore salmon habitats affected by warming waters or move their homes, funding gaps and complications were key concerns.

A representative from one anonymous tribe in the report said it was not able to hire a grant writer and had to rely on its biology department to navigate the maze of funding applications. Another talked about depending on 15 separate funders just to build a marina.

"This is a time of historic state and federal investment in climate action, and tribal priorities really need to be considered when making decisions around how we're going to be directing this investment," said Meade Krosby, senior author of the report.

"Hopefully this will help to inform how this work is being done, how these funds are being directed, so that they are actually responsive to the barriers that tribes are facing and helping to remove some of those barriers so the tribes can get the good work done."

The Bureau of Indian Affairs did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Most of the tribes included in the report had completed publicly available reports on the impacts of climate change, and some had developed detailed plans for relocation as rising waters threaten buildings, or even entire villages.

The Quinault Indian Nation, in Washington's Olympic Peninsula, has a plan for relocating its largest village. The multimillion-dollar effort has relied on a piecemeal of federal and state grants and the constraints that come with them, Gary Morishima, Quinault's natural resources technical adviser, explained in the report.

Other tribes brought up concerns about competing against other tribal nations for funding when collaboration is such a vital part of responding to climate change. Tribal lands share borders and coastlines, and the impacts of climate change on those lands do not stop at any border, the report pointed out.

Amelia Marchand, citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and another author of the report, explained that it comes down to the federal government fulfilling its trust responsibility to tribes.

"The treaty is supposed to support and uplift and ensure that what the tribes need for continued existence is maintained," she said. "And that's one of the issues with not having this coordinated federal response because different federal agencies are doing different things."

Millions of dollars have gone to coastal tribes, and the report said much more is needed. It referenced a 2020 Bureau of Indian Affairs report that estimated that tribes in the lower 48 states would need $1.9 billion over the next half-century for infrastructure needs related to climate change.

Amid all the challenges, Pacific Northwest tribes are still leaders in climate adaptation and have plenty to teach other communities, Marchand said.

"Finding ways to make their progress happen for their nations and their communities despite those odds is one of the most inspiring and hopeful resilient stories," she said.