Tribe Laments Grueling Tribal Federal Recognition Bureaucracy

U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is calling for the Little Shell Tribe of Montana to have another chance at federal recognition after it was preliminarily approved under the Clinton administration, delayed for eight years under the George W. Bush administration, and then denied in 2009 by the Obama administration. Tribal citizens are cautiously optimistic, as they have been down this potentially positive road before only to find themselves lost in the continuing bureaucratic maze that is the federal recognition process for tribes today. It is a maze that never seems to get any easier, even after several congressional inquiries in recent years, as well as promises from multiple administrations to streamline the process. The decision to deny under the Obama administration was originally made by George Skibine, former Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, in October 2009 after then-Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry EchoHawk recused himself from deciding. Skibine said at the time that the tribe did not satisfy three of seven criteria for acknowledgment, specifically the requirements that a tribe has been identified as an Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis at least since 1900; comprises a distinct community since historical times and maintains significant social relationships and interaction as part of a distinct community; and maintains political influence over a community of its members or over communities that combined into the petitioner...more