The Oregon legislature narrowly approved a measure yesterday that grants tribal police officers the right to enforce state law off tribal lands, regardless of whether the crime originated on a reservation. Oregon is apparently only the second state to enact such legislation. According to the Portland Oregonian: “Currently, tribal officers can only enforce state law [...]

The U.S.–Canada border slices right through Mohawk ancestral lands but Joyce King, director of the Justice Department for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, almost couldn’t make it into Canada on June 18. A Canadian border official not only made her show other i.d.—tribal identification and Indian status cards did the trick and got her into [...]

An article in the Seattle Times explains how in 2010 the Washington state Department of Corrections stripped American Indians in its 12 prisons of virtually all their religious and spiritual practices when a religious programs manager outlawed tribal sacred medicines, barred fry bread and salmon for breaking traditional fasts, and altered what inmates could store [...]

Dr. Dean Chavers writes today about the lack of voting rights for Indian peoples. He states that Indians have had to fight to win the right to vote since the returning Indian GIs in WW I. He states that the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) found a quarter of a century ago that only 20% [...]

Part of the Onondaga Lake shoreline sacred to the Onondaga Indian Nation could be given to the tribe by county lawmakers in the Syracuse New York area. The Post-Standard of Syracuse reports that the Onondaga County Legislature is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a non-binding resolution that could lead to the tribe’s acquisition of a [...]

Mario Salazar, a self-professed 21st Century Pacifist and bleeding heart liberal writes in the Washington Times about the Mapuche people and Chile. He recounts his visit to the city of Concepción Chile, founded in 1550. He talks about the the war against the Mapuches, and the fact that they formed an independent sovereign nation on [...]

The Ho Chunk Nation says a sacred plant is being wrongly confiscated from its members serving in the military. For many Native Americans, ceremonial tobacco is for prayer, meditation, and in the case of soldiers – protection. Conroy Greendeer Sr. from Ho Chunk says deployed Ho Chunk soldiers take tobacco with them, but often commanding [...]

The White House announced to tribal leaders recently its launch of a webpage “Winning the Future: President Obama and the Native American Community.” The webpage is intended to “serve as another tool to help Indian Country navigate the federal government and learn about how the President’s Agenda is helping to win the future for Native [...]

As in the United States, Canada and other countries, Indigenous people are dramatically overrepresented in the rates of incarceration. This no doubt has a lot to do with issues of poverty, disenfranchisement, and social issues arising from centuries of active and official repression. Australia is suffering these same issue and a recent federal parliamentary committee [...]

One of the basic human rights, it seems, is to be able to control the disposition of the remains of your ancestors and relatives. All 50 states in the U.S. have laws controlling and protecting human remains. American Indians rights to protect their ancestors have not been protected in the United States until very recently. [...]