Random question that occurred to me randomly

[conuly]

If, say, the Navajo or Mohawk or Cherokee or whoever nation wanted to sponsor one or ten or a thousand refugees on their own land, could they do that? Like, independently, I mean, without having to deal with general rules set up by the USA? Which suck, obvs, because we could definitely house more refugees in the USA.

Comments

[randomdreams]

In theory, yes. A Sioux reservation in South Dakota briefly hosted the only legal reproductive health clinic in the state that offered abortion services, because they could do so despite a state law that made abortion technically if not legally unavailable.
In practice, the Administration has been making some pretty aggressive statements about changing/nullifying a lot of treaty rights, mostly because they want to run giant oil pipelines through reservation property without restrictions, and something like this would make that particular fight happen a lot sooner, and possibly make it a lot more difficult.

[conuly]

: (

[monanotlisa]

No, in the United States, only the Federal government has jurisdiction over immigration:

Article I, Section 8, clause 4 of the Con­stitution entrusts the federal legislative branch with the power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.”

There is case law, of course, but I don't know it. So you'd have to google (armed with the above legal basis) to look specifically for Indian nations.

[pauamma]

I have no answer, but I like the output of your random question generator.

[dewline]

If they wanted to make a point of rubbing the noses of the current management of either the US, Canada or both, on this specific issue? I'm sure there are people who'd love to commit acts of kindness as a way of taking shots at the Indian Act in Canada. The Kanien'kehá:ka - the people I was taught to call "Mohawks" - might have more of a public argument amongst themselves about it for various reasons (also related to said Indian Act).

But you're speaking of the US context specifically.

I don't know nearly enough to speculate responsibly here...

[silveradept]

It depends, I suspect, on how much state and federal judges are willing to respect that First Nations people are supposed to be sovereign on their own lands.

[conuly]

So that's a no, then.

[silveradept]

Might make it through an appeals court or two before someone stomped thoroughly on it, but likely no.

[brokenallbroken]

Even if they could de jure, I'm pretty sure de facto the Feds would say "LOL, no, also we give no shits about what your treaty says" (as they do with every other NDN question). And AFAIK, most of the US rezes barely/don't have the infrastructure to support their own people in a developed-world manner, much less extra people.

[conuly]

And AFAIK, most of the US rezes barely/don't have the infrastructure to support their own people in a developed-world manner, much less extra people.

Still might be better than a refugee camp if they can manage to grow their own food.

[archangelbeth]

Big If there, I think. O:(

[sabotabby]

My memory is hazy, but didn't someone try?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Don't think so. Where I live, on the Olympic Peninsula, some of the coastline is First Nations (Makah and Quileute), but (as far as I know) all of the offshore waters are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Border Patrol.

It's, like, the Makah couldn't suddenly declare that heroin or polygamy or child porn or whatever is legal on Makah land. Any exceptions to Federal law have to be supported by treaty law, and that is a huge can of worms. I very much doubt there is anything in the First Nations treaties that addresses the issue of asylum for non-Native political refugees.

[conuly]

It was a thought, anyway. (Well, other people brought up the issue of supporting those refugees, so maybe it was never a great thought.)