The American Indian Rights and Resources Organization is hosting two meetings in California to discuss disenrollment issues.

The April 17 meeting in Sacramento and the April 24 meeting in Temecula will be used to gather information from people who have been removed from tribal rolls. AIRRO plans to submit the information to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is looking into Indian issues in the U.S.

"The UN is going to look at the United States record of enforcing and protecting the basic rights of people within its borders, especially indigenous people,” AIRRO president John Gomez told Capitol Weekly. "I think this will be the first time it will be shown not only to the State Department but to the UN that there really is a problem in Indian Country."

Gomez used to be a member of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians. The tribe has removed hundreds of people from the rolls in recent years.

According to AIRRO, more than 2,000 California Indians have been taken off the rolls of their former tribes.

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Disenrollment activists taking their case to the UN (Capitol Weekly 4/1)