Overview:
Closing National Archives facilities without tribal consultation threatens access to records documenting treaties, trust lands and Indian boarding schools.
Opinion
The Trump administration’s decision to close three National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facilities is being met with resistance from tribal officials, historians and archivists.
Although the internal email announcing the changes did not come from the now-shuttered Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government’s real estate holdings sure feels like a DOGE effort.
The June 23, 2026 email, sent by NARA Chief Operating Officer Jay Trainer, said the decision would support the agency’s “long-term financial health” and reduce expenses and its real estate portfolio “in alignment with the administration’s priorities.”
The planned closing of the National Archives at Chicago drew attention in July when Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Councilor Rapheal Wahwassuck raised it with tribal leaders during the Potawatomi Gathering, hosted by the Forest County Potawatomi Community in late July.
Wahwassuck voiced his concern about the preservation of tribal documents currently housed at the facility. He asked the group to submit a request to the National Congress of American Indians to adopt a resolution opposing the closure.
My tribe, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, is the only federally recognized tribe with trust land in Illinois. The tribe’s trust land is located less than 75 miles from the Chicago National Archives.
The facility houses Bureau of Indian Affairs records that take up 2,296 linear feet. The records came from two dozen BIA agencies, subagencies and Indian boarding schools that operated across Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.
The documents include day-to-day agency operations, including correspondence and narrative and statistical reports; financial records, including annuity payments, disbursements, cash reports, ledgers, and vouchers; “restricted Indian” financial affairs, including probate files, spending requests, and heirship and estate records; land allotment records, including eligibility lists, applications, plat maps, protests, and leasing records; education records, including school enrollment, student case files, and faculty rosters; and records related to social and economic programs.
Most of the records in Chicago have not been digitized and are only available in person.
Other facilities impacted by the June 23 announcement include the closure of NARA’s San Francisco facility and transferring all temporary records from the Seattle Records Center.
Tribal concerns about the historic documents include potential damage during transportation to other NARA facilities, as well as concerns about the loss of proximity to records used by individuals and students for research purposes.
A larger concern is the failure by the Trump administration to conduct tribal consultation before making the decision to close the facilities. It is another example of the Trump administration’s failure to respect tribal sovereignty and the integrity of the tribal consultation process.
There is a legal precedent that stopped the planned closing of a NARA facility in Seattle. In 2020, the Public Buildings Reform Board recommended selling the Seattle NARA building and relocating its records to Kansas City, Mo., and Riverside, Calif.
In January 2021, near the end of the first Trump administration, then-Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit against the federal government. Twenty-nine federally recognized tribes, Alaska Native tribal entities and tribal communities from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska joined the lawsuit, along with the state of Oregon and several historical preservation organizations and museums. They objected to the closing because of the extensive tribal and treaty records housed at the Seattle facility.
A month later, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the sale of the Seattle facility. The injunction stopped the government from proceeding with the proposed sale and relocation of the records while the case was being litigated. The judge found that the coalition was likely to prevail on its claims that the federal government had acted unlawfully.
Things changed with a new presidential administration. In April 2021, the Biden administration withdrew the Office of Management and Budget’s approval of the sale. That effectively ended the effort to sell the Seattle facility, and the lawsuit was subsequently dismissed without prejudice.
Tribes should now consider legal action against the Trump administration to stop the closures of NARA facilities that impact Native American records, including tribal documents and Indian boarding school records.
Tribes should also ask Congress to intervene. Congress should hold hearings to investigate who authorized the changes, what will happen to the records and why tribes were not given the opportunity to engage in meaningful government-to-government consultation.
The records housed at NARA facilities document the federal government’s long and often contentious legal relationship with sovereign tribal nations. They belong within the reach of Native nations and people whose histories, lands, assets and relatives they document. Tribes must have access to their own history.
Thayék gde nwéndëmen – We are all related.
