Native nations embrace resilience, take action as political tides turn

Trump’s Justice Department challenged birthright citizenship, citing overturned legal precedents from more than a century ago that once denied nationality to Native Americans. The impacts were immediate. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began detaining Navajo citizens in urban areas despite their possession of tribal IDs. The Navajo Nation Office of Vital Records reported being inundated with calls from enrolled Diné questioned about their identities – with one held for nine hours.

Meanwhile, tribal programs across Indian Country faced a sudden halt in essential services when the Office of Management and Budget froze federal funding. A court order eventually lifted the freeze, but this and the other actions prompted more than 20 national Indigenous organizations to issue a strong reminder that “Tribal nations are not special interest groups—they are sovereign governments with a unique legal and political relationship with the United States.”

“Indigenous people, our people, we’ve been through a lot worse and we are very resilient people,” said Wizipan Little Elk Garriott, formerly principal deputy assistant secretary under outgoing Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland. Now at the helm of NDN Collective, he said of Native American communities, “I think part of our superpowers as Indian people is our resilience.”

The Power of Treaty Rights

OJ Semans, co-executive director of Four Directions, said resilience has been tested with every incoming presidential administration.

“Every four years, we have to re-educate the U.S. government,” he said. “We have to re-educate them to ensure they understand through our treaties they have an obligation to tribes and that they have to deal with us as nation-to-nation, which is different from others.”

Judith LeBlanc, director of the Native Organizers Alliance, emphasized the distinctive relationship between Native Americans and the federal government: “I think the unique status is that we have dual citizenship—citizenship in our nations and in the U.S. And the beauty of that is that we have a direct relation with the U.S. government. We can play a role in the defense of Mother Earth—and that benefits not only our nations but all the people.”

She pointed to the Dakota Access Pipeline battle to stop DAPL from crossing under the Missouri River as a powerful example: “The people of Standing Rock were defending the water rights of 17 million people downstream who count on that water.”

Protecting Native Votes

Voting rights are particularly under threat. Semans noted that proposed federal legislation would require proof of citizenship—such as a birth certificate—to register to vote, as many jurisdictions were not accepting tribal IDs.

“In Rosebud, for example, our on-reservation membership is a little over 35,000. The total is like 45,000,” he said. “If they want to get a birth certificate, they can’t go to the tribal office, they have to go to the county office.”

In remote areas where some people don’t even own a car, it’s a strong impediment, he said. In some states, registration must be done online and with a credit card — putting voting out of reach entirely for those without internet or credit cards. “So, having that requirement will really, really suppress the ability to vote.”

The impact on election outcomes could be significant. “If you look at the population, poverty-wise, that will tell you how many people are probably going to be suppressed from voting, regardless of their race,” Semans said. “But particularly in Indian Country, being able to register the maximum number of Native Americans could actually swing an election one way or the other. You take and wipe out 30, 40 percent. That takes that power away.”

From Frozen Funds to Stolen Resources

Political power and economic stability are inextricably linked for tribal nations. That connection became crystal clear in the early days of the Trump administration when a sudden freeze on federal funding to tribal programs threatened essential services across Indian Country.

A federal judge ruled that the freeze was illegal since the funding was congressionally mandated, and agencies reopened their accounts within hours of a resolution from the Coalition of Large Tribes. The freeze exemplified both the ongoing challenges and the power of coordinated response. As executive director of COLT, which represents Native nations controlling 95% of all Indian lands and resources in the United States, Semans saw rapid results when the group took action.

The COLT effort was part of a broader mobilization of tribal organizations, including the 20 that issued the coordinated warning statement on Feb. 3. Their statement emphasized that federal funding for tribal programs is not discretionary, but rather “a legal mandate owed under the United States’ trust and treaty obligations and the many statutes that carry them out.” They called on the administration to explicitly recognize tribal sovereignty and trust obligations in implementing all executive orders.

But the funding freeze highlighted a deeper issue — the federal trustees’ failure to understand and honor the government’s treaty obligations regarding Native lands and resources.

LeBlanc put it bluntly: “Those treaties that were signed, we gave up land and people died for those treaty rights.”

Garriott elaborated on the economic impact: “In our part of the world, you had $2 trillion worth of buffalo killed. That’s $2 trillion worth of wealth that was extracted and taken away from us.”

Managing Native Lands, Protecting Global Resources

During his time at the Department of Interior under Secretary Haaland, Garriott saw firsthand how federal support of Indigenous knowledge and management practices consistently yielded improved results.

Now, former Biden administration actions that encouraged sovereignty over Native lands are on the chopping block. The environmental justice measures are the first to go, following Trump decrees.

“Indians, Native tribes, Native Americans, Indigenous people are without exception unequivocally the best land managers in the entire world,” Garriott said. “And that when we’re able to manage our lands, our treaty lands and our ancestral lands, the rest of the country and the rest of the globe benefits.”

The evidence is stark: in an oft-cited statistic, globally, Indigenous peoples manage just 20% of the world’s land and comprise just 5% of the world’s population — but their land protects 80% of the planet’s biodiversity. Yet as Garriott pointed out, “Less than four-tenths of a percent of conservation resources go toward Indigenous people.”

The disparity between Indigenous expertise and conventional government practices becomes clear in areas where tribal and federal lands meet. “You can go places where you see federally managed lands and you know there was a fire because the land’s been devastated,” he said. “When adjacent, right next to it is tribal land and the same fire went through, but because of their land management practices, it’s growing back healthy, strong, and resilient.”

Indigenous Organizations Build Power

The three leaders emphasized that while the challenges are serious, Indigenous organizations are building power through multiple strategies. NDN Collective has distributed $108 million over five years to more than 1,450 grantees, supporting Indigenous-led initiatives across Indian Country, such as the Waziata Development Project in Rapid City, South Dakota. The project includes a dual-language school, with plans for a community center and 150 affordable housing units.

Four Directions is focused on protecting Native voting rights through innovative approaches. “We’re creating databases in which we’re able to identify Native voters, not just with their addresses, but most importantly, cell phone numbers and emails,” Semans explained. The organization is also developing software to analyze voter turnout patterns and identify areas where increased registration could have the greatest impact.

The Path Forward: Guided by Ancestors

For LeBlanc, the path forward requires bringing Indigenous values into every venture.”We can never underestimate that we walk guided by our ancestors so we’re able to address problems we face in the present on behalf of our descendants,” she said. “We always find some way forward as our ancestors did during times of great duress. We have to bring the medicine into the struggles for the right to health care, housing, the right to have a job — these things are special for us because of the treaty rights we negotiated.”

Garriott emphasized the importance of remaining focused on the bigger picture. “It’s important not to panic and be like, okay, all of a sudden, Native Americans are going to be deported or anything like that. However, we should be taking it very seriously because we always have to remain vigilant about our rights.”

His message to Indigenous youth carries the spark of possibility that has sustained Native nations through centuries of challenge: “Our youth, our young people, have an energy and resilience and power that is inherent within their DNA as Indigenous people. And if they allow themselves to exercise that inherent power within themselves, nothing, nothing is impossible.”

NDN Collective Founder Nick Tilsen’s words have been coming up for Garriott lately as he steps into the organization’s leadership: “Our best days as Indigenous people are in front of us.”