Michelle Roberts: Open letter on Nooksack Tribe disenrollment

In the wake of the Cedarville tragedy, will you now honor your trust responsibility to all American Indians to prevent such disenrollment-atrocities?

As the media has rightfully observed, “the shooting in Modoc County is the latest, and most chilling, example of tribal violence over power struggles and disenrollments.”

In December, Nooksack Tribal Secretary Rudy St. Germain and I wrote each of you, after you ignored a petition signed in October by 900 tribal members in Washington State, imploring your intercession in our disenrollment.

Our family and tribal members have also been subject to abuse of process by others on our Tribal Council, racial slurs and taunting by our opponents, visits to our homes by tribal police at all hours of the night, and treatment like criminals by the tribal court and cops. Meanwhile, there has been almost no democratic process at Nooksack in well over a year; no General Council meetings; no public Tribal Council meetings. Recall petitions signed by hundreds of us have been thrown away. And the doors of the Tribal Court have been closed to us.