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- By Native News Online Staff
GILA RIVER, Ariz. — The nation’s leading Native advocacy group, Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) partner to Native Organizers Alliance, responded to reports that President Biden will be issuing an apology for the harm caused by Indian boarding schools. Judith LeBlanc (Caddo), executive director of Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund: issued the following statement on President Joe Biden's Indian boarding school apology:
“President Biden’s formal apology for the deep and lasting harm caused by Indian boarding schools will help heal generations of survivors and their families. All children are sacred, and the impact caused by the federal policy of family separation has had lasting effects on our families, communities, and on our cultures.
In the past four years under the Biden-Harris administration, Native peoples and sovereign nations have advocated for policy change, and a stronger, more transparent relationship with the federal government. We pushed for the appointment of Deb Haaland, our Laguna Pueblo relative, as Secretary of the Interior. Under her leadership we have been better represented in the highest offices than ever before. It is no accident that this apology for harms caused by boarding schools is taking place during Secretary Haaland’s historic tenure in office. For the first time, we have someone who understands our history and belief systems as Native people, and shares the deep connections we have to each other, and to these lands, waters, wildlife, and natural resources. We don’t have to explain how we treat our sacred resources, where all living things exist in relationship to each other.
Under Biden-Harris, we have also advocated for a real Tribal consultation process. Following a historic rally on the National Mall, where hundreds of Native peoples and Tribal leaders called on the president to strengthen consultation, Biden signed an executive order directing all federal agencies to address and strengthen their processes for consulting with Tribes. The impact of this order set into motion real structural changes to engage more than 200 Tribal nations in the co-management of land and resources. It is the right of our sovereign Tribal nations to decide on projects on our ancestral homelands. But too often, the approval process for major developments like oil pipelines are pushed through without proper Tribal consultation and approvals.
We have also seen under Biden-Harris a record-breaking number of Native appointments across federal agencies. Eighty Native Americans and Alaska Natives work in federal agencies, more than any other administration. Biden-Harris restored and expanded the sacred Bears Ears Monument for the benefit of future generations.
In stark contrast, we have former President Trump who plans to seize federal lands for housing developments if reelected. This is a violation of our treaty rights and respect for traditional ecological knowledge. His Project 2025 also intends to concentrate power in the White House, another violation of our Constitutional rights and an extreme risk to Tribal sovereignty and the Tribal-federal relationship. His first days in office in 2016, he slashed the Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and fast-tracked the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines, against the wishes of sovereign Tribal nations.
The decision by the president to issue this apology is one of many historic changes we have seen in Indian Country under the Biden-Harris administration. Through voting and advocacy, Indian Country has propelled real progress and we hope to see more under a Harris administration. We’re not going back to a time where our Tribal sovereignty is trampled upon and our sacred lands seized for development without our approval. There’s too much at stake to take a step back.”
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