Tribal prosecutor will have Special Assistant US Attorney status to implement VAWA 2013 provisions
Herman Williams, Chairman of the Tulalip Tribes, United States Attorney for the Western District, Jenny A. Durkan, and Tulalip prosecutor Sharon Jones Hayden Photo/Francesca Hillery
Source: Tulalip Tribes
Tulalip, WA—July 11, 2014—Herman Williams, Chairman of the Tulalip Tribes signed a memorandum of understanding today with the United States Attorney for the Western District, Jenny A. Durkan, which calls for the appointment of Tulalip prosecutor Sharon Jones Hayden to Special Assistant United State Attorney (SAUSA). The SAUSA designation will help the Tulalip Court continue to implement the new tribal provisions under the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 2013.
The Tulalip Tribes has already begun to implement the Special Criminal Domestic Violence Jurisdiction (SCDVJ) that expands tribal jurisdiction to non-Indians who have committed domestic violence crimes against Native Americans on the Tulalip Reservation. Tulalip is one of three pilot tribes who are rolling out the new provisions before other U.S. tribes begin to implement in March 2015.
“We value our relationship with the US Attorney here in the Western District and the new SAUSA appointment will help our tribal court better protect our people,” said Tulalip Tribes Chairman Herman Williams. “We have worked hard to build a justice system that makes our community safer for everyone.”
“This is the first Tribal Prosecutor SAUSA appointment in this District and is an important recognition of this Office’s partnership with tribal communities in Western Washington to foster and promote the reduction of violence and enhance public safety for tribal communities,” said Jenny A. Durkan, US Attorney for the Western District.
As a SAUSA, Ms. Jones Hayden will work closely with the US Attorney Western District’s Assistant United States Attorney Tribal Liaisons in handling cases involving domestic violence crimes committed by Indian and non-Indian offenders occurring within the Tulalip Tribes’ territorial jurisdiction, and particularly those cases that fall within the newly enacted Violence Against Women’s Act Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction.
Today, the Senate failed to advance S. 2363, a bi-partisan sportsmen bill designed to boost hunting and fishing protections on federal public land, reauthorize the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA), wetland and fishing conservation programs, and would allow online sales of duck stamps. The bill, introduced by Senator Kay Hagan, (D-NC) and co-sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), was meant to help several incumbents who face tough reelection races this year. Seen as a political boon for red-state Democrats, the bill died by a vote of 41-56 due to disagreements over a slew of amendments that would have forced vulnerable incumbents to take tough votes on tweaking gun laws. Among the amendments filed today was one that would have protected tribal treaty and other rights of tribes. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and co-sponsored by Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, stated in part: “(b) Effect of Act.–Notwithstanding any other provision of law, nothing in this Act or the amendments made by this Act affects or modifies any treaty or other right of any Indian tribe, including the protection of sacred and cultural areas. (c) Duties of the Secretaries with Respect to Treaty Rights. In carrying out this Act or the amendments made by this Act, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture shall take appropriate measures to uphold treaty and other rights of Indian tribes, including protecting and preserving sacred and cultural areas of Indian tribes located on Federal public land.” Mapetsi reported on February 13th, that the House passed H.R. 3590, its version of a sportsmen bill. Even though the House bill also included language to protect tribal treaty rights on federal public land, the Heinrich/Tester amendment that was filed today would have provided greater protections for tribal rights by requiring Interior and USDA to take “appropriate measures to uphold” tribal treaty and other rights. Key differences between the House and Senate bills over environmental, FLTFA reauthorization and other issues all but guarantees that Congress will not pass a sportsmen bill this year. In February, Senator Heinrich introduced S. 368 a stand-alone bill to reauthorize FLTFA, which facilitates the administrative sale or disposal of certain federal public land. Heinrich has expressed support for inclusion of provisions to protect treaty and other rights of tribes in his FLTFA reauthorization measure. Mapetsi will continue to provide updates on this issue.
Attachment:
Senators Heinrich and Tester amendment to S. 2363–
Washington D.C. (KELO AM) – U.S. Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD), James Inhofe (R-OK), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) today introduced the Tribal Adoption Parity Act. The legislation ensures parents adopting American Indian and Alaskan Native children through tribal courts are treated fairly under our nation’s tax code by making it easier for adoptive parents across Indian Country to claim the full adoption tax credit for “special needs” children.
“The Tribal Adoption Parity Act will provide financial relief for families in South Dakota by making it easier for adoptive parents in Indian Country to claim the full adoption tax credit,” Johnson said. “It is unacceptable that parents who adopt an Indian child through a tribal court are prevented from accessing the financial relief that is provided to adoptive families in non-tribal areas. This bill addresses an oversight in our tax code by ensuring that adoptive parents throughout Indian Country receive fair tax treatment.”
Under current law, parents adopting a child who has been determined by a State as “special needs” can claim the full adoption tax credit regardless of their qualified adoption expenses. Congress created the “special needs” determination to provide an added incentive for parents adopting children who might otherwise be difficult to place in adoptive homes. In Fiscal Year 2011, 84 percent of the nearly 50,000 children adopted through public agencies were designated as having “special needs.” Parents adopting children through tribal courts, however, are currently ineligible for the special needs adoption tax credit. This unfortunately results in parents and children throughout Indian Country unfairly missing out on an important tax credit that would make a significant difference in their day-to-day lives. Becoming eligible for the special needs adoption tax credit would help further reduce the financial costs associated with adoption and lessen administrative burdens.
In 1978, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act that gives Indian tribes exclusive jurisdiction over custody proceedings involving Indian children within a reservation. The special needs adoption tax credit currently fails to recognize the authority that tribal governments have over adoption proceedings of Indian children. The Tribal Adoption Parity Act would amend the Internal Revenue Code to provide fair tax treatment to parents adopting Indian children through tribal courts. As a result, a tribal government would be permitted to designate an adoptive Indian child as having “special needs.” This legislation would ensure that families in Indian Country are treated fairly by providing the same financial relief that adoptive families currently receive across the nation.
The bill has been endorsed by organizations such as the National Indian Child Welfare Association, the Child Welfare League of America, Voice for Adoption, the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, the Donaldson Adoption Institute, and the Joint Council for International Children’s Services.
In 1996, Congress created the adoption tax credit to ease the initial financial burden for adoptive parents. The adoption tax credit provides a tax credit of up to $10,000 and is adjusted for inflation. The credit was $12,970 for tax year 2013. Since 2003, families adopting children with “special needs” are allowed to claim the full adoption tax credit regardless of their qualified adoption expenses. The definition of “special needs” varies from state to state. Examples of factors that can qualify a child for the “special needs” determination include: age; membership in a minority or sibling group; ethnic background; medical condition; or physical, mental, and emotional handicaps.
The National Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the Internal Revenue Service, recommended the adoption tax credit be amended to recognize tribal governments in its 2012 Annual Report to Congress, which can be accessed here.
About 70 people gathered in May, 2014 to protest the proposed coal export facility in Boardman, Oregon. Yakama Nation and Lummi Nation tribal members spoke at a ceremony before people fished at treaty-protected fishing sites. | credit: Courtney Flatt
This blunt response comes after two years of talks between the tribes and Ambre Energy – the company that wants to build a coal export terminal on a part of the river that the tribes consider historic fishing grounds protected by their treaty with the federal government.
For Ambre’s export terminal, 8.8 million tons of coal per year would be transported by rail from Montana and Wyoming to Boardman, in Eastern Oregon. From there, it would be barged down the Columbia River and transferred to ocean-going vessels to be shipped to Asia.
Ambre Energy has offered to pay the tribe up to $800,000 per year (the same amount it’s offered the Morrow and Columbia County school districts). The company is also offering $500, 000 toward salmon and stream enhancements and $100,000 toward culture and history celebrations during the Morrow Pacific Project’s construction.
A tribal spokesman said the tribes have been in discussions with Ambre Energy for two years. Chuck Sams said that’s when the tribe began raising concerns about treaty fishing sites near the company’s proposed dock.
“We will not abdicate, nor will we trade, any of our treaty rights,” Sams said. “We’ve already proven to them time and time again that the place where they wish to site their facility is a usual and accustomed fishing station.”
Sams said there is no way Ambre could make up for damage that could be done to the fishing site because people fish there now.
Members from the Yakama Nation and the Lummi Nation recently held fishing demonstrations at the site where the coal terminal construction is proposed.
An Ambre Energy spokeswoman says the company chose this site specifically because it did not impact fishing sites.
“It’s important to remember that the proposed dock is on private Port of Morrow property in between two existing docks. And even with that, from the beginning we have sought a partnership with the tribes based on mutual respect, shared benefits, collaboration, and cooperation,” said spokeswoman Liz Fuller.
Sams said no formal reply to the company is in the works because the Umatilla tribes have already expressed concerns to Ambre Energy in face-to-face meetings.
Sams went on, however, to say the Umatillas are open to further discussions.
Referring to offers from Ambre Energy, Sams said, “I think that they read the public wrong – our public, our tribal citizens – and where we stand. The tribal members themselves are pretty strong on environmental issues, especially in protection of their treaty rights. … Putting out a letter that dangled out financial gain for the tribe really does not resonate well within the tribal membership.”
The Australia-based Ambre Energy is still waiting on a permit from the Oregon Department of State Lands to build the dock at its Boardman site. The permit decision has been delayed multiple times. Right now a permitting decision is scheduled for Aug. 18.
According to DSL rules, the permit can be issued if the dock doesn’t “unreasonably interfere” with preservation of water for navigation, fishing and public recreation.
Remains of mentally ill reunited with surviving family as part of project
Remains of mentally ill reunited with surviving family as part of project
By JONATHAN J. COOPER, Associated Press
SALEM, Ore. — They were dubbed the “forgotten souls,” the cremated remains of thousands who came through the doors of Oregon’s state mental hospital, died there, and whose ashes were abandoned inside 3,500 copper urns.
Discovered a decade ago at the decrepit Oregon State Hospital, where “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed, the remains became a symbol of the state’s — and the nation’s — dark history of treating the mentally ill.
A research effort to unearth the stories of those who moved through the hospital’s halls, and to reunite the remains with surviving relatives, takes center stage today as officials dedicate a memorial to those once-forgotten patients.
“No one wants to be laid to rest without some kind of acknowledgement that they were here, that they contributed, that they lived,” said state Senate President Peter Courtney, who led the effort to replace the hospital and build the memorial.
Between 1913 and 1971, more than 5,300 people were cremated at the hospital. Most were patients at the mental institution, but some died at hospitals, the state tuberculosis hospital, a state penitentiary or the Fairview Training Center, where people with developmental disabilities were institutionalized.
Hospital officials have worked for years to reunite the remains of their former patients with surviving relatives. Since the urns were found by lawmakers on a tour of the hospital in 2005, 183 have been claimed.
The 3,409 that remain and have been identified are listed in a searchable online database. Thirty-eight urns will likely never be identified; they’re unmarked, have duplicate numbers or aren’t listed in ledgers of people cremated at the hospital.
They came from different backgrounds, for different reasons. Some stayed just days before they died, others for nearly their entire lives. Twenty-two were Native Americans. Their remains won’t be part of the memorial; they’ll be returned to their tribes for a proper ceremony. Members of the local Sikh community are working to claim the remains of two people.
Many of the 110 veterans still there will eventually receive proper military burials, though some are ineligible due to dishonorable discharges or insufficient information available.
Some patients spent a lifetime at the hospital for conditions like depression and bipolar disorder that, in modern times, are treated on an outpatient basis.
“At the time, they just put them in a safe place and treated them with what they knew to treat them,” said Sharon Tucker, who led the two-year research project.
Records are sparse, even for people who lived for decades inside the walls. Some had severe delusions; others had physical deformities. Some seemed to be institutionalized because their families just didn’t know what to do with them.
But what does survive is a window not only into who they were, but the time in which they lived.
The remains of thousands have been transferred from the copper canisters to ceramic urns that will better protect them. The old canisters will be preserved to give visitors to the memorial a sense for how they once were housed.
“I think it will be very difficult to forget them now,” said Jodie Jones, the state administrator leading the hospital replacement project.
The American Indian Cancer Foundation holds a Powwow for Hope each year to raise money for cancer education, including smoking prevention efforts, on Saturday, May 3, 2014 at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis. Jennifer Simonson/MPR News
Minneapolis – Inside the cavernous Base Camp facility at Fort Snelling, a long line of cancer survivors made a slow procession around the perimeter of the former cavalry drill hall where a century ago Army troops trained their horses. Their presence at a gathering of American Indians is solemn, supportive and startling.
“A lot of survivors,” an MC announced over a drumbeat. “So survivors come on out.”
Cancer has devastated Minnesota’s American Indian population, stripping families of breadwinners and robbing children of their parents and grandparents.
Nowhere is the scale of the problem more evident than the annual spring Powwow for Hope, where dancers dressed in vibrant traditional costumes escorted the survivors until their line morphed into a vast circle.
Overhead a projector cycled through dozens of photographs and names of American Indians who have lost their cancer battles in the past year. The tribute also included stories of hope and cancer remission.
Among the cancer survivors whose picture flashed on the screen was Robert DesJarlait, a 67-year-old member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Ten months earlier, doctors removed a cancerous tumor from his colon.
“It’s kind of ironic that I was at this powwow last year and didn’t know for sure that I officially had cancer,” he said.
When it comes to cancer — Minnesota’s number one cause of death — American Indians are almost always on the wrong end of the state’s data on the health disparity that exists between whites and minorities.
Their risk of dying from lung cancer is more than two times higher than it is among non-Hispanic whites. Their rates of cervical and larynx cancer are four times higher.
American Indians also have the state’s highest rates of colorectal, kidney and oral cancers.
While the statistics are grim, they are not immutable. Striking new research has revealed that more than half of the state’s American Indians smoke. Their smoking rate is so high it likely explains much of their excess cancer burden.
The stark data are making it easier for some native people to question their community’s complicated relationship with tobacco. The research is also providing much-needed direction on where native people can most effectively focus their cancer-fighting efforts.
DesJarlait, a visual artist, is among those who have changed their lifestyles.
During a break in the program DesJarlait said he considers himself fortunate. His cancer was detected at an early stage and his treatment has been successful. After being weakened by the disease and treatment, he felt strong enough to dance at this year’s powwow.
One of the biggest lifestyle changes he made was quitting tobacco. He switched to electronic cigarettes after his doctor warned him that his cancer could return, if he didn’t quit his two-pack-a-day smoking habit.
“And I said, ‘You mean smoking caused the tumor in my colon?’ And she said, ‘Yes, well it’s one of the factors.'”
While there are many potential causes of cancer — from genetics to poor diet and lack of exercise — tobacco use is strongly related to the cancers that most affect Minnesota’s native people.
“We can’t talk about cancer in American Indian communities without addressing the high rates of tobacco and the rates of second-hand smoke exposure in our communities,” said Kris Rhodes, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and executive director of the American Indian Cancer Foundation. The non-profit organization sponsors the Powwow for Hope and is one of the community’s biggest voices in urging Indian people to quit smoking.
A recent tribal tobacco use survey found that 59 percent of Minnesota’s native people smoke. Nearly 3,000 people completed the questionnaire, making it the largest tobacco survey ever conducted among American Indians in Minnesota.
Jean Forster, co-author of a report on the survey, said a 59 percent smoking rate is “an unbelievable number” because it is nearly four times higher than Minnesota’s overall adult smoking rate of 16 percent.
“Fifty-nine percent means that most people smoke, most adults smoke. Most kids see that most adults smoke,” she said. “It’s a normative behavior for those communities.”
The survey wasn’t designed to reveal why the smoking rate is so high in American Indian communities.
But Forster, a University of Minnesota epidemiologist, said it’s obvious that Minnesota’s anti-smoking campaigns have either failed to reach native people, or have had little effect on them.
“What we’re doing for the population just is not working,” she said. “This is the same smoking rate that the population as a whole experienced at its peak in the ’60s.”
By that measure, Forster said, it could take decades for American Indians to change their minds about smoking.
A few days before Mother’s Day, 24-year-old Ricki LaMorie of Hayward, Wis., grabbed her pack of cigarettes and headed toward the back porch of her grandmother’s Minneapolis home.
“I’m gonna go smoke my cigarette,” she said. “That sounds bad.”
Ricki LaMorie, of Hayward, Wis., smokes a cigarette outside her grandmother Margie LaMorie’s home while visiting during Mother’s Day weekend Thursday, May 8, 2014 in Minneapolis. LaMorie said she knows that smoking is bad for her health and tries not to do it often. Jennifer Simonson/MPR News
Her grandmother, Margie LaMorie, objects to her smoking habit, but understands how hard it is to quit. LaMorrie, 75, has been a smoker for over six decades. She started smoking before she was even in her teens.
“My grandma bought me my first pack of cigarettes when I was 11,” she said. “So I had to go to the neighbor kids to teach me how, because she thought I was sneaking, and I wasn’t sneaking.”
LaMorie’s grandmother did ask her to follow a few smoking rules. But they were designed to prevent the 11-year-old from burning down her family’s outhouse, or possibly even their home, on the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation in northern Wisconsin.
“There was no smoking before breakfast in the morning,” she recalled. “There was no smoking after dinner. There was no smoking upstairs. There was no smoking by oneself without someone paying attention.”
LaMorie said no one in her community knew anything about smoking’s link to cancer back then. It was just something that everyone seemed to be doing and it made her feel grown-up and glamorous.
She still smokes and is not sure why she hasn’t quit. Even her colon cancer diagnosis a few years ago wasn’t enough of an incentive.
Still, LaMorie believes anyone can quit — if they want to.
“Some days I can go without any until someone will come along and, ‘Oh I’m gonna go sit out. Oh, I’ll go join you,'” she said. “For me it’s a social thing.”
Jackie Dionne, the American Indian Health director at the Minnesota Department of Health, has heard that many times before.
“It’s just so commonly accepted, that it’s, ‘Yeah, I know these are going to kill me, but I’m going to smoke anyway,'” said Dionne, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe and a former smoker. “It’s just that ’cause everybody else is smoking.
“We have to really go through a social change like the state did in the mid-’80s when people stopped smoking and then didn’t want to be around people who did smoke,” she said. “And so then it becomes socially unacceptable.”
Dionne said anti-tobacco advocates don’t fully understand the reasons why native people smoke. In part, she said, that explains why anti-tobacco strategies that have worked well in the general population have not been particularly effective in the American Indian community.
A Health Department report released in February attributed health disparities in American Indian communities to government efforts to uproot them from their land and destroy their way of life. The report concluded that the displacement has led to high rates of unemployment, poverty and high-risk behaviors among native people.
Smoking, Dionne said, is a coping mechanism for many American Indians.
“You have trauma that is generational, you know, my grandma, my mom and then me,” she said. “Highly traumatized people and populations tend to report higher levels of depression and anxiety. And when you’re reporting higher levels of depression and anxiety in a population, nicotine is one of those drugs that will relieve it almost immediately.”
The use of ceremonial tobacco may be another factor that has influenced American Indian smoking rates.
Tobacco is considered a sacred medicine given by the Creator, said Rhodes, of the American Indian Cancer Foundation. Tobacco is used regularly in ceremonies, but it also is common for American Indians to use leaves from other plants. On occasion, herbs are burned in a vessel.
However, she said there has been some debate within the community about whether it is appropriate to translate that spiritual meaning to smoking commercial tobacco.
Rhodes said it has also been challenging to send a strong message about the ills of commercial tobacco when it affects the livelihoods of so many people. In the age of the Indian casino, cigarette sales are an important part of the tribal economy. They have helped impoverished tribes build new roads and schools.
“Those of us that work in tobacco control in tribal communities know that the economics associated with tobacco in our tribal communities are really sensitive issues,” she said.
To a certain degree, American Indians already know what they need to do to reduce the terrible toll that cancer has taken on their communities. Better data has revealed that reducing the smoking rate is an obvious start. But it will be a complicated journey.
Some native leaders acknowledge feeling a bit overwhelmed by the task.
But in the same breath, they’re optimistic — they’ve noticed many more people talking about the link between smoking and cancer in the months since the tobacco use report was released. That, they say, is a good start.
Free seminars at Cabela’s Tulalip this weekend are pointed toward summer salmon seasons, and include the following highlights:
Saturday: 11 a.m., Catching Silvers on the Fly, with Mike Benbow; noon, Fall Salmon Fishing in the River, with Jim and Jennifer Stahl of NW Fishing Guides; 1 p.m., Chasing Salmon in the Salt, with Gary Krein; and 2 p.m., Egg Cure Secrets, with Cabela’s Outfitters
Sunday: 11 a.m., Rigging Your Salmon Rod, hosted by Jim and Jennifer Stahl; noon, Chasing Salmon in the Salt, with Nic Kester; 1 p.m., Salmon Love Herring, Strategies, Tips and Secrets, with Cabela’s Outfitters; and 2 p.m., Fall Salmon Fishing in the River, with Jim and Jennifer Stahl.
PASCAGOULA — A group of hundreds of Choctaw descendants, most of them living in the Vancleave area, made a great leap toward federal help Wednesday when the Chancery Court in Jackson County recognized them as an official Native American tribe.
“This is a huge hurdle to get past,” said Dustin Thomas, attorney for a portion of the descendants. He said it should speed the process of getting recognition by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Chancery Judge D. Neil Harris made the ruling after two factions within the group healed their differences and agreed on a constitution and bylaws for the Vancleave Live Oak Choctaw tribe.
The court directed Thomas to file an application and documents with the Interior Department for federal recognition of the tribe.
“… this agreement is in the best interest of the parties and all minor children affiliated,” the court ruled.
The factions set up a provisional council to handle matters under the ruling.
Thomas said the biggest benefit to federal recognition may be health care.
“They really need this,” Thomas said of the tribe. “They are so poor.”
He said the group can trace its ancestry to four women and a French trader in the 1700s. The tribe numbers about 1,500, most living in South Mississippi.
The group also is associated with a school established in Vancleave in the early 1900s called the Indian Creole School.
“We’re just so proud today that a court recognizes them,” Thomas said. “These people are so happy.”
Jackson County Supervisor Troy Ross said Wednesday the acknowledgement of this tribe likely would have no effect on the issue of casinos in Jackson County. Those who oppose casinos in the county long have expressed concerns one might be allowed on Indian land.
To do that would require going through the DOI, Ross said, and the governor would have “tremendous input.”
“The governor knows we’ve voted not to have casinos here,” Ross said Wednesday.
Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2014/07/09/5691046/chancery-court-acknowledges-choctaw.html?sp=/99/184/201/#storylink=cpy
