eveningstarwoman:

eveningstarwoman:

Bureau of Indian Affairs isn’t allowed to communicate with tribal leaders, and all federal correspondence with tribal leaders has to be approved by Trump’s staff 5 days in advance. WTFFFFF

just to clarify, this means that any information regarding:

• BIA-funded K12 schools
• BIA-funded educational programs, namely tribal adult ed funding and the Johnson O’Malley program (which provides critical funding to fill in deficits for Native students; the idea is that because Native families do not pay property taxes on their tribal land, those students don’t “contribute” money to their local school district, so the feds chip in to cover the difference…JOM pays for things like after school programs, school supplies, libraries, etc for K12)
• BIA law enforcement on tribal lands
• questions on potential policy changes
• current issues/bills in Congress that would affect Indian Country
• other federally-funded programs, like funds from OVW to support tribal domestic violence programs (which it sounds like Trump is working on cutting)
• the relationship tribes have with federal law enforcement and public lands management (like the national parks) 
• tribal government petitions/communications to the federal government

etc, all must be approved by Trump’s staff before being sent to tribal leadership. effectively this means the BIA can’t really do their job at all, because they have to be in near-constant communication with tribes at many different levels (for example, when i worked in a tribal dept of education, we frequently contacted BIA for meetings, advice, interpretations of grant stipulations, etc)

so basically this puts tribes in a very difficult situation by keeping them in the dark, and it further erodes whatever shreds of trust we may have had with the federal government. the only reason for this ban on communication without approval is that there is information they don’t want BIA to give our leadership??