Tribal Affairs
2024
2024-10-01 During a Kendrick Idaho meeting, representatives claimed that discrimination doesn’t exist in Idaho. When a Nez Perc member stated the contrary, Senator Forman told Trish Carter Goodheart to go back to where she came from and proceeded to storm out. Senator Forman is still running for the 2026 election.
2025 January
2025-01-28 The Navajo Nation in Arizona issued a warning to citizens that dozens of their tribe members were being stopped, questioned, and detained based solely on their appearance.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/27/us/navajo-detained-ice-indigenous-immigration-trump
https://narf.org/citizenship-immigration-2025/
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/29/native-american-immigration-raids-navajo-nation
2025 July
2025-07-06 Ann Coulter posted “We didn’t kill enough Indians” in response to a Navajo woman professor dictation.
https://nahc.ca.gov/2025/07/nahc-denounces-pro-genocidal-statement/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1273507801440992&set=a.349594800498968&type=3&ref=embed_post
2025-07-23 The Trump administration forced Muir Woods National Monument to remove displays about redwood trees helping curb climate change, history about indigenous people, and displays pertaining to women’s contributions.
2025-07-25 Data centers (a.k.a. data colonialism) and mining are heavily threatening indigenous lands and sovereignty.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/data-centers-indian-country/
https://nativenewsonline.net/opinion/data-centers-and-ai-are-a-betrayal-of-indigenous-lifeways/
https://icmagazine.org/indigenous-peoples-push-back-as-data-centers-expand-across-north-america/
https://www.honorearth.org/stopdatacolonialism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac0-fBK0LVQ&list=WL&index=7&t=81s
2025 August
2025-08-19 Trump pushed back on a court decision to temporarily block the Resolution Copper project, blaming the delay on the “radical left”. For context, the Resolution Copper project is a widely controversial project which aims to develop copper mining upon sacred and protected Native American holy sites protected by treaties since the 1800’s. Also noteworthy, China has invested billions of dollars in this project, so the argument is where does the responsibility lay, with wealthy Chinese investors or the American people.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/20/copper-trump-slams-anti-american-pushback-over-arizona-project.html
2025 September
2025-09-15 Jacqueline De Leon of the Native American Rights Fund was interviewed by Katie Phang, stating how Native American rights are impacted by voting discrimination rulings. She discussed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act potentially being on the chopping block by fall.
2025 November
2025-11-28 Elaine Miles, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and known for her acting role in Northern Exposure, was detained and questioned by ICE. News outlets reported that when she provided her tribal identification card, ICE accused her of providing a fake ID. (For context, the Navajo Nations had issued a warning to citizens back in January 2025 for ICE agents profiling Native Americans).
2026 February
2026-02-05 The Trump Administration forced exhibits at Little Bighorn National Monument be sanitized from actual historical events so displays will align with the Trump agenda and Executive Order. The Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council unanimously voted 11-0 to prevent changes.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/northern-cheyenne-push-back-against-175232834.html
2026 April
2026-04-21 (context) The U.N. Permanent Forum on indigenous issues this year. One topic on the agenda is the AI boom driving extraction and scraping of indigenous medicinal knowledge, traditional stories and genetic data, and massive data centers threatening tribal lands and water resources. In one report, the Trump administration has allegedly made it increasingly difficult for indigenous people to obtain US Visas to attend the UN forum in New York.
https://social.desa.un.org/issues/indigenous-peoples/unpfii/25th-session
https://un-declaration.narf.org/unpfii2026-registration
https://ictnews.org/news/war-climate-change-and-ai-whats-at-stake-at-this-years-un-indigenous-forum/
2026 May
2026-05-04 During the construction of Trump’s border wall in the Sonoran desert, crews plowed over a Native American archaeological site Tohono O’odham.
https://tucson.com/news/local/border/article_50f4781a-021a-4147-a38b-8be88efde41c.html
https://people.com/trump-border-wall-damaged-1000-year-old-native-site-11965452
SUB WALL https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2026/04/30/border-wall-damage-indigenous-arizona/