When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began operations in Minneapolis, Shane Mantz, a manager with the Choctaw Nation, turned to paperwork he keeps for emergencies—pulling his tribal citizenship card from a box and sliding it into his wallet. Mantz said some people mistake him for Latino and that he fears getting caught up in federal immigration enforcement. He said many Native Americans have begun doing similar preparations, treating tribal documents as an on-the-ground proof of U.S. citizenship if agents stop them or question their status.
A central change, multiple tribal leaders and advocates described, is that more nations are pushing out identification documents with fewer barriers and shorter turnaround times. The article said dozens of the 575 federally recognized Native nations are making it easier to obtain tribal IDs by waiving fees, lowering the age of eligibility—ranging from 5 to 18 nationwide—and printing the cards faster. David Wilkins, described as an expert on Native politics and governance at the University of Richmond, said the use of tribal IDs as a widespread proof of citizenship and protection from federal law enforcement was “the first time tribal IDs have been widely used as proof of U.S. citizenship and protection against federal law enforcement.”
Wilkins said he found the new practice frustrating and disheartening. “I don’t think there’s anything historically comparable,” he said. “I find it terribly frustrating and disheartening.” Jaqueline De León, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund and a member of Isleta Pueblo, said there is a bitter irony in Native Americans feeling compelled to “prove they belong” as the first people of the land. De León said, “As the first people of this land, there’s no reason why Native Americans should have their citizenship questioned.”
The fear playing out in Minneapolis is tied to the broader posture of the federal operation. In early January, the article said, a top ICE official announced what was described as the “largest immigration operation ever,” with masked, heavily armed agents traveling in convoys of unmarked SUVs. The report said that by this week more than 3,400 people had been arrested, and that the operation involved thousands of ICE and Border Patrol officers on the ground.
Native communities in the Twin Cities also described their own logistical response to the enforcement activity. Representatives from at least 10 tribes traveled hundreds of miles to Minneapolis to accept ID applications from members there, including the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe of Wisconsin, the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa of North Dakota. Turtle Mountain citizen Faron Houle renewed his tribal ID card and helped his young adult son and daughter get their first ones, saying, “You just get nervous,” and adding that he believes ICE agents are “more or less racial profiling people, including me.”
In Minnesota’s urban setting, where the article said about 70% of Native Americans live, advocates said many people cannot easily travel to reservations for documentation. Christine Yellow Bird, who directs the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s satellite office in Fargo, North Dakota, said she made four trips to Minneapolis in recent weeks and that she put nearly 2,000 miles on her 2017 Chevy Tahoe helping citizens in the Twin Cities who could not make the long trip. Yellow Bird said, “I’m proud of who I am,” and she added, “I never thought I would have to carry it for my own safety.”
Other Native Americans, the report said, have described encounters in other states in which they say agents questioned their identity documents. The article described Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren as saying last year that tribal citizens reported stops and detentions in Arizona and New Mexico, and it said tribal leaders have advised people to carry tribal IDs at all times. It also described Elaine Miles, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon and an actress known for roles including “Northern Exposure” and “The Last of Us,” as saying she was stopped in Washington state in November after ICE officers told her her tribal ID looked fake.
The article also quoted or described responses by tribal governments and individuals. This week, the report said the Oglala Sioux Tribe banned ICE from its reservation in southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska, while the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said a member was detained in Minnesota last weekend. It also said Navajo construction worker Peter Yazzie reported that ICE arrested him in Phoenix for several hours last week after officers searched his vehicle; Yazzie said it was an “ugly feeling” and that “It makes you feel less human. To know that people see your features and think so little of you.”
The Department of Homeland Security said it trains agents to distinguish between alienage and removability. In an email, the department told the article’s reporters that its agents are “properly trained to determine alienage and removability.” The email also said, “Under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, DHS law enforcement uses ‘reasonable suspicion’ to make arrests,” and it added that the Supreme Court recently ruled on the use of apparent race and ethnicity as a factor in detaining a person, after the Supreme Court allowed ICE agents to use race and ethnicity in September.
For Mantz, the demand to carry documents has become both practical and personal. He said he runs pest-control operations in Minneapolis neighborhoods where ICE agents are active and he will not leave home without his tribal identification documents, including for his children. Mantz said, “It gives me some peace of mind. But at the same time, why do we have to carry these documents?” and he added, “Who are you to ask us to prove who we are?”