Guest Column By The Nooksack 306
Who are we—the Nooksack 306?
We are 306 Nooksack Indigenous relatives who have faced persecution by politicians running the Nooksack Indian Tribe in Whatcom County of Washington State, since 2012.
While Nooksack politicians claim we were telephonically disenrolled in November 2016, the U.S. Interior Department invalidated the disenrollment that month and U.S. Department of Justice later declared that those politicians "endeavored to unilaterally declare members of this minority group 'disenrolled' using a sham hearing process while also systematically depriving them of the means to challenge the actions . . . in the tribal judicial system." We were also disenrolled despite several Nooksack tribal court injunction orders.
We have never been legally disenrolled. We still belong at Nooksack. We will always belong at Nooksack.
What is disenrollment and why is it destructive?
Disenrollment is a non-traditional, neocolonial tribal practice that is intended to keep tribal politicians in power and concentrate a tribe's wealth within their political base by removing enrolled citizens of their tribal nations who are seen as a "threat" to said power and wealth hoarding. This would be equivalent to the United States revoking your American citizenship because a political leader feels they can gain more power if you don't have rights. Read more about how disenrollment is problematic by clicking here.
Are we the only Indigenous peoples experiencing disenrollment?
No. There are over 90 U.S.-recognized tribes (15% of all recognized tribes) who have disenrolled as many as 10,000 tribal citizens for power and profit. Disenrollment is allowed to occur because federal and state courts will generally not assert jurisdiction over the deprivation of an Indigenous person's civil rights. As at Nooksack, tribal courts are often beholden to the politicians who are causing the persecution and disenrollment.
Why are we being persecuted?
Nooksack politicians argue that our ancestor, Annie George, is not Nooksack and her daughters were wrongly enrolled. Annie George is the daughter of Matsqui, the Chief of the Nooksack Village of Matsqui in British Columbia. The Tribe recognizes Matsqui as a “Nooksack Place Name” in our traditional language Lhéchalosem on its website.
Nooksack people hail from southern British Columbia and northern Washington State. A Nooksack chief signed a U.S. Indian Treaty in 1855 but the courts treated us as Canadian Indigenous persons until 1973, when the Tribe was recognized by the U.S. Our Elders were enrolled in the 1980s. Disenrollment came 40 years later after individuals outside the George lineage felt we were a threat to their political power.
In 2013, Tribal politicians launched a successful political campaign to amend Nooksack constitution in order to eliminate us. They also fired the Chief Judge of the Nooksack Tribal Court who had ruled against them, and installed their white lawyer Ray Dodge as the new Chief Judge to make sure no lawsuit we might file in Tribal Court to prevent our disenrollment would ever be heard.
We are believed to be one of the largest Indigenous families ever subject to disenrollment in the United States. To learn more about our disenrollment, please read this article by The New York Times.
What issues do we face as disenrolled Indigenous peoples?
Without enrollment, we are denied access to voting, health services, fishing rights, pensions, and scholarship opportunities. We cannot take part in cultural or political activities at Nooksack. Our disenrollment has also led to 63 of us facing eviction from our homes that we own under federally funded home ownership programs.
What changes do we hope to see happen?
We hope that Nooksack politicians will do the right thing and stop this decade-long injustice. If they continue to refuse, we hope that - with our attorney Gabe Galanda - the federal government will determine this to be a civil rights violation. We have also called upon the United Nations to declare this an international human rights atrocity. We hope that the deprivation of any Indigenous person's civil rights will be prevented.
What can outsiders do to support us?
Allies are invited to follow our Twitter (@Nooksack306) and Facebook (The Nooksack 306). Sharing and retweeting our content helps others learn about us and creates further pressure on the Nooksack tribal government to do the right thing. We also ask for donations to our GoFundMe to support the 63 of us who are being evicted from our homes at Nooksack.
