Tribal nations are concerned that Trump’s cuts have the potential to violate trust responsibilities
Tribal nations are concerned that Trump’s cuts have the potential to violate trust responsibilities
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — In tribal nations across the United States, leaders are scrambling to respond to a directive from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to close more than a quarter of Bureau of Indian Affairs offices, which provide vital services to Indigenous communities.
Trump and Musk are calling on the General Services Administration, or GSA, to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, including 25 regional offices of the BIA. Those offices fulfill a wide variety of rights the U.S. owes to tribal nations, and some leaders and legal experts are worried the potential closures, layoffs and funding freezes could violate those trust responsibilities.
“It’s a destabilizing action,” said Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of the American Indian. “I really have to think we have to assume the worst, unfortunately.”
In the many treaties the U.S. signed with tribal nations, it outlined several rights owed to them — like land rights and healthcare through departments established later, like Indian Health Services. Trust responsibilities are the legal and moral obligations the U.S. has to protect and uphold those rights. Tribes go through BIA regional offices to approve things like road projects and law enforcement funding.
The move to close the regional offices is part of a sweeping effort by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by Musk to reduce the size and spending of the federal government.
Funding for the BIA, IHS and the Bureau of Indian Education represents the lion’s share of the government’s obligations to tribes, Macarro said, and last year those departments made up less than a quarter of 1% of the federal budget.
“They’re looking in the wrong place to be doing this,” said Macarro. “And what’s frustrating is that we know that DOGE couldn’t be a more uninformed group of people behind the switch. They need to know, come up to speed real quick, on what treaty rights and trust responsibility means.”
Part of those trust responsibilities is consulting with tribes on matters that affect their citizens, said Jacqueline De León, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, which represents tribes protecting their treaty rights. “In the case of BIE cuts, this type of action taken without consultation is rare and in clear violation of the law,” she said.
In February, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rescinded an order to lay off 950 IHS employees, hours after they had been told by phone they were being fired. A Jan. 30 order from the Interior Department titled “Ending DEI Programs and Gender Ideology Extremism” stated that any efforts to eradicate diversity, equity and inclusion in the department’s policy should exclude trust obligations to tribal nations.
In a letter sent Thursday to GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian and exclusively shared with The Associated Press, Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly expressed serious concern about the announced closure of the BIA’s regional office in Phoenix, one of the department’s largest.
“Its closure will severely limit access for all of these tribes to essential services ranging from economic development to child social services to water system improvements,” the senators wrote. “The federal government is at serious risk of failing at its most basic obligations, including breaking long-held promises to tribes.”
The senators asked Ehikian to explain how the Phoenix office was chosen for closure and how the government will meet its trust responsibilities if it is shuttered.
A spokesperson for the GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vital federal departments for tribes like the BIA and IHS have been chronically underfunded and understaffed. That often means the contracts and projects those agencies are required to approve for tribal nations are already delayed, said Martin Harvier, president of the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community in Phoenix.
“If they’re going to start shutting down the office, that means all of us on the other end are waiting for a response, and it just delays things that we’re trying to move forward,” he said. “Whether it be a family waiting for a probate to happen or a family waiting for a lease so they can build a home on their lot or economic development.”
Harvier said he has been assured by staff at the Phoenix office that its inclusion on the list of closures was a mistake, but he and other tribal leaders he is speaking with are uncertain about the days ahead.
“I think all of the tribal nations are just very concerned right now,” he said. “We just don’t know what to expect.”
By GRAHAM LEE BREWER
Associated Press
