The Bee published “Valley Indian casinos in flux as tribes jockey for gambling dollars.”
Tejon Indian Tribe
IPR Coverage of Supreme Court Grant in Michigan v. Bay Mills
Here.
Interior Office of Inspector General Questions Recognition of Tejon Indian Tribe
From the Interior OIG website:
The Office of Inspector General investigated former Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs (AS-IA) Larry Echo Hawk’s decision to “reaffirm” the Tejon Indian Tribe of California in December 2011 without going through the acknowledgment process set forth in 25 C.F.R., Part 83, “Procedures for Establishing That an American Indian Group Exists as an Indian Tribe.”
We found that the Tejon Tribe, along with several other American Indian groups, submitted petitions requesting reaffirmation by the AS-IA. These petitions were outside the Part 83 acknowledgment process, which is the official process for recognizing Indian groups as tribes and is administered by the AS-IA’s Office of Federal Acknowledgment (OFA). We could not find any discernible process Echo Hawk and his staff might have used to select the Tejon Tribe for recognition above the other groups.
We also found that Echo Hawk and his staff did not consult with OFA or with Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) leadership before deciding to reaffirm the Tejon Tribe. Because OFA was not consulted, other American Indian groups with historical, genealogical, and ancestral claims to the original Tejon Indians were left out of the process. In addition, not involving BIA leadership caused budgeting and operational difficulties for BIA, which in turn slowed down the process for providing Federal services to the Tejon Tribe. The AS-IA also denied subsequent requests by BIA for additional FY 2013 funding, which was needed to provide these services for the newly recognized Tribe.
DOI Reaffirms Federal Recognition Status of the Tejon Indian Tribe
From the press release:
The Tejon Indian Tribe first requested confirmation of its status in 2006. Due to an administrative error, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) failed for several years to place the Tejon Indian Tribe on the list of federally recognized tribes that the BIA is required to publish annually. That list, entitled “Indian Entities Recognized and Eligible to Receive Services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs,” was last published in the Federal Register on October 1, 2010 at 75 FR 60810, and the list was supplemented on October 27, 2010 at 75 FR 66124.
In his letter to the Tejon Indian Tribe, the Assistant Secretary stated that “[u]pon review of the facts and history of this matter, including prior Assistant Secretaries’ decisions, I herby reaffirm the federal relationship between the United States and the Tejon Indian Tribe, thus concluding the long and unfortunate omission of the Tejon Indian Tribe from the list of federally recognized tribes.”
Turtle Talk 