The 11 tribal nations in Wisconsin have dozens of federal grant programs, including nearly
$3 billion for tribal health, $14 million for broadband, and more than $10 million connected
to tribal colleges.
Just how vulnerable is this funding, and how might treaty rights be violated, not to mention
the services provided, if it gets wiped away?
We turn to Dahaasihil, chairman of the United Nations, for his take, and chairman, thanks
very much for being here.
Yes, thank you for the invitation.
So for the Oneida, what would be potential impacts of any federal funding freeze?
Yeah, it could be quite large, depending on how they're rolled out and the particulars.
So at Oneida, a very large portion of our budget actually comes from federal and state
grants.
So if it's just quite clear, that would be very detrimental to our community and for
federal levels, and for families and all that we take care of here in Oneida.
And do these grants impact different tribal nations differently?
It all depends on what they've been applied for and granted at that point, and so continuing
to monitor each tribe individually, obviously knows what grants they've been, went through
the process to receive and or other funding mechanisms through federal laws.
When you got word that there was this pause or freeze on these grant and loan programs,
what was your reaction?
Well, you know, at first it was well, let's hope it's not as bad as it's being made out
to be.
Obviously, as it comes to tribal nations and how we're affected by the federal dollar
and government shutdowns and freezes like this is a little bit different per se, depending
on what those lines that are frozen and how they impact to the nation.
And so, you know, it's definitely okay, let's see what happens with this, how these different
departments are handling this presidential order for this hiring freeze or not hiring
freeze, but to give the grant and loans and see what exactly those effects are on us.
What about the piece that are binding commitments in sovereign tribal nations based on treaty
and trust obligations from land exchange hundreds of years ago?
Yeah, that's always the worry, you know, obviously the tribal nations that see upwards
of 2 billion acres of land to the birth of the United States and exchange for that land
was promises that we battle every day to hold the United States accountable to the promises
they made to our ancestors for that transaction.
And so, that's an everyday battle, no matter who the president is or who's in Congress,
tribes stand up together to fight those battles and do that education where necessary to be
able to bring to light those issues when it comes to funding for tribal nations.
Does this move seem somehow different or setting an alarming precedent in your mind?
I think it is alarming to a certain extent just because a lot of the presidential orders
are pretty broad and so they're not specific enough for us to be able to analyze and be like,
okay, this is how it's going to affect us because a lot of it's just left up to the discretion of
either political appointees or long-term employees who don't necessarily have the authority to make
the decisions that they normally would during these transition periods. So, it's really kind
of like a wait and see at this point how those decisions are made and they trickle down through
the system to have the effect on tribal nations. As to executive orders coming out of Washington,
we've seen reported that some tribal members have been detained in immigration sweeps.
Is that something that you're aware of in the Oneida or across the state?
I have no been able to verify any Oneida tribal members being detained or even checked at this
point. I know another tribe in the states that they had some of their tribal members checked but
not detained just verifying their identification and let you know continue on their way to where
they were heading. But for us, we haven't had any verified accounts of anyone actually being
detained. Is it perversely in question that all Native Americans born in the US are citizens
as to this birthright citizen issue? Yeah, you know the Snyder Act passed in 1924,
so it's 100 year old law and so I don't think that's really in question.
It would obviously take an act of Congress to reverse that decision or the Supreme Court
to change these types of things and so those are kind of long processes that would probably see
legal battle the entire way along the way it's processed to the Supreme Court and so
I think that's just a long-standing law that I don't think isn't any question right now but it is
in the backs of some people's minds as a threat to tribal sovereignty but I think at this point
it's a long ways off. That's good news. Chairman Tahasey Hill, thanks very much.
All right, thank you.
Thank you. We'll see we'll see what happens because I'm still a little confused about what is happening
with that federal freeze and whether it's on or off it seems that it's off but they want it to be
on so we'll see what happens. Yeah, you know that's kind of the stance we've been taking
with a lot of these presidential orders is just making sure that we're aware of them and then
tracking should they have an impact to the nation so that we can
confer with our our Wisconsin delegation to either who may have the president's year
and be able to get things changed as quickly as possible like what happened with the
spending freeze essentially. Yeah, did you reach out to the congressional delegation on that?
Yeah, we definitely did and we're still in the process of you know reaching out to some of them but
early on we did you know reach out to a couple of them who obviously tenured ones who are in the
everyday aspect of this and then we're still continuing to reach out to the more newly elected
ones to let them know our stances and positions and you know kind of the the ins and outs of how
you know federal government relationship is to tribal nations and how the funding works and
how detrimental such things as this percent this order was not being clear of how it affected
and who it affected. Yeah, a little bit of education along the way huh?
All right all right thank you sir appreciate it. All right you're welcome.