Newly recognized tribe sues to reopen casino in New Mexico

The Fort Sill Apache tribe, which successfully sued Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration last spring to obtain recognition in New Mexico, is going back to court to fight for another long-standing cause. The tribe filed suit Monday against the National Indian Gaming Commission in hopes of reopening its casino in Southern New Mexico. In 2009, the gaming commission chairman ruled that the tribe was illegally running bingo games at its Apache Homelands Casino. Tribal Chairman Jeff Haozous said the finding was arbitrary, but the Fort Sill Apaches shuttered their casino because the commission threatened them with fines of up to $25,000 a day. The Fort Sill Apaches said the National Indian Gaming Commission was supposed to complete the review in 2009 but never did. “We are asking the court to do what the NIGC promised to do five years ago — review our case in a reasonable amount of time,” Haozous said. Fort Sill Apaches are successors of the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache tribes, which warred with the U.S. Army when New Mexico was still a territory. In 1886, after Geronimo and other tribal leaders surrendered, the Apaches were forcibly removed from their homeland in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The American government then held them as prisoners of war in Alabama, Florida and Oklahoma. Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apaches later organized as the Fort Sill Apache Tribe...more