(CN) — A federal judge, on Wednesday, ruled against the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska in their bid to take over a 787-sqaure-foot parcel of land in Juneau.
That parcel, "an overflow parking area" for the tribe office's employees and guests, has been held in a trust by the federal government on behalf of the tribe since last year, following a petition. Effectively, the tiny piece of land is "Indian Country," otherwise known as an Indian reservation, under the legal jurisdiction of the tribe, rather than the state. But the state of Alaska challenged the U.S. Department of Interior's approval of the tribe's petition. It also challenged the federal government's ability to place any land into trust in Alaska.
In a 39-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason found that the Department of Interior does have the power to convert land into Indian Country, at least in general, but ruled that it can't do so with this piece of land, because the Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior failed to determine whether or not the Tlingit & Haida tribe qualifies as "Indian" under federal law.
Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor expressed tepid praise for the ruling, saying in a written statement: “We filed this litigation because of the patchwork it would create with enclaves of reservations scattered through the state. The judge’s decision today ensures that for the time being, that is not happening."
"What the decision did not do was provide the clarity and finality that the State was ultimately seeking," he added.
Signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1971, a bit more than a decade after Alaska became a state, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was a grand bargain intended to settle all land claims made by Native tribes. It gave $962.5 million and roughly 44 million acres of land to a number of private business corporations, the shareholders of which were required to be Alaska Natives. In exchange, Native tribes gave up all other claims to land.
The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act had already authorized the U.S. Department of the Interior to take land into a trust for Indian Tribes, creating hundreds of Indian reservations. Once Alaska entered the union, the Department of the Interior determined that Alaska was exempt from the Indian Reorganization Act, since its tribes had relinquished all claims to the land.
In 2022, under the Biden administration, the Department of the Interior's Officer of the Solicitor concluded that the secretary could accept land into a trust, thus finally removing what had become known as the "Alaska exception."
The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes, which claims to represent more than 37,000 Natives worldwide, was among the first tribes to file a petition to place land it had already been using into trust — the 787-square-foot parking lot. The tribe hoped it would be the first of several adjacent plots of land part of a movement that has been called "LandBack."
The Department of the Interior granted the tribe's petition, but it was challenged by the State of Alaska, which argued that there had to be “clear congressional authorization” for the federal government to take lands into trust. Judge Gleason disagreed. Though she noted the tension between the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the Indian Reorganization Act, she found that "the Secretary has the authority to take lands into trust in Alaska."
However, the judge ruled against the Tlingit & Haida Tribes' petition. She found it "problematic" that the Assistant Secretary of the Interior had stated, in his approval of the petition, that "the anticipated benefits of acquiring the Parcel into trust include restoration of Indian lands." The judge agreed with the state of Alaska that the land couldn't be "restored" to the tribe, because the tribe had already relinquished its right to the land in 1971, under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
"The Court finds that specific justification to be arbitrary and capricious, because it relies on a factor — aboriginal title — that Congress had not intended the agency to consider by extinguishing such title," Gleason wrote.
Gleason also found that the Assistant Secretary had "failed to properly examine whether Tlingit & Haida qualifies under [the Indian Reorganization Act's] definition of 'Indian,' which is a prerequisite to his authority to take land into trust for the Tribe." Though the federal government has argued that Eskimos and other aboriginal peoples of Alaska should be considered Indians, Gleason found that the law is at very least ambiguous, and that the Assistant Secretary impermissibly did not consider that issue.
The case is now remanded back to the Department of the Interior, which must reconsider the application.
"The agency will have to address some pretty major hurdles in order to grant an application in the future," said Attorney General Treg Taylor in his statement. "Because this decision ultimately seems to raise more questions than answers, we will need some time to thoroughly evaluate it before determining next steps."
As for the 787-square-foot parcel of land, it will continue to be used as an overflow parking lot for Tlingit & Haida’s employees and guests.
The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the ruling. Lawyers for Tlingit & Haida Tribes did not immediately respond to an email requesting a comment on this story.
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