The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that would prevent the Trump administration from removing the 300 acres of tribal lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts from federal trust.
The legislation, part of an omnibus spending bill, would forbid the Interior Department from revoking its Obama-era 2015 decision to put the land into trust, a decision that was later reversed by the current administration.
Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, who sponsored the bill, commented, “In recent months, the Trump administration has used the Covid-19 pandemic as cover to try to steal the tribe’s land and define their people out of existence. This amendment will put an immediate stop to those dangerous efforts.”
Co-sponsor Rep. William Keating added that the bill would foil “constant efforts to undermine the tribe’s rights.” One right the tribe seeks to exercise is the right to develop a $1 billion casino in Taunton.
To take effect, the bill would require passage in the Republican-controlled Senate, which has resisted attempts to support the tribe.
The Trump administration contends the Interior Department had no authority to put the land into trust, citing the Supreme Court’s Carcieri v. Salazar decision, which holds that a tribe not under federal jurisdiction in 1934 cannot put land into trust. The Mashpee tribe, based in Cape Cod, was recognized in 2007, but can trace its interaction with European settlers back to 1620, when its ancestors greeted the Pilgrims at Plymouth and later helped them survive their first winter in the New World.
In the most recent court ruling on this matter, in June, a federal judge ordered the Interior Department to stop the revocation process and review the matter before issuing new findings.
