To defend its executive order ending birthright citizenship, the Trump administration is citing a 19th century law that once excluded Native Americans from holding that status.
Attorneys for the Justice Department raised a nearly 150-year-old case that claimed that tribal members were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore constitutionally ineligible for citizenship.
During an interview on Maine Calling Monday morning, Maulian Bryant, executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance, said the comments from the new administration are "extremely troubling."
And though the Trump administration's birthright order has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge, Bryant said it's unfair to use the status of indigenous people to promote a policy agenda.
"But I do think it signals some sort of a desire to break down the federal responsibility to tribal nations and to really undermine that relationship," Bryant said.
Native Americans were formally given U.S. citizenship in 1924. Tribal members didn't receive the right to vote in Maine state elections until 1967.
With a new Congress and new presidential administration in place, Wabanaki leaders say they're still debating whether to revive a 2022 legislative proposal to allow tribal nations in Maine to benefit from future federal laws.
Tribes viewed the bill, which was introduced by Rep. Jared Golden and backed by Rep. Chellie Pingree, as a necessary update to the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. The measure cleared the U.S. House but never got a vote in the Senate.
The 2022 bill did not have an have endorsement from a U.S. senator in Maine.
"We can easily dispel a lot of those fears by looking at how other tribes across the country are doing things," Bryant said. "And when you look at the tribal lands in Maine, it's very, very small. So this thinking of like, if there's tribal laws on one piece of land and state laws on the other, we're talking about very small areas. And we can work these things out."
Bryant said it's unclear how the new Trump administration might react to the measure, and tribal leaders want to find a U.S. senator who might sponsor the proposal first.
