The
Pascua Yaqui Tribe is helping other Indian nations develop their own travel documents that can be used to cross international borders.
The tribe was the first with a federally-approved
Enhanced Tribal Card, or ETC. The card enables citizens to cross freely between the United States and Mexico for work, social and ceremonial purposes.
“For the Pascua Yaqui people, we always travel from the communities into Mexico. We have eight pueblos, which are the original homeland. We have about 60,000 Yaquis there who are family,” Marisela Nuñez, the tribe's enrollment and ETC program director, told The Phoenix New-Times. “So it’s important to have the card, say, if there’s a ceremony or a death in the family.”
The tribe has since helped the
Hydaburg Cooperative Association in Alaska gain approval for an ETC in 2016. Other Indian nations in Washington are also working on cards, The New-Times reported.
The
Kootenai Tribe and the
Seneca Nation are the only other two tribes with approved ETCs, according to notices in the
Federal Register.
Read More on the Story:
Arizona Tribe Expands High-Tech IDs to Ease Border Crossing
(The Phoenix New-Times 7/11)
Federal Register Notices:
Western
Hemisphere Travel Initiative: Designation of an Approved Native American Tribal
Card Issued by the Pascua Yaqui Tribe as an Acceptable Document To Denote
Identity and Citizenship (Juune 9, 2001)
Western
Hemisphere Travel Initiative: Designation of an Approved Native American Tribal
Card Issued by the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho as an Acceptable Document To Denote
Identity and Citizenship (January 31, 2012)
Western
Hemisphere Travel Initiative: Designation of an Approved Native American Tribal
Card Issued by the Seneca Nation of Indians as an Acceptable Document
(July 13, 2015)
Western
Hemisphere Travel Initiative: Designation of an Approved Native American Tribal
Card Issued by the Hydaburg Cooperative Association of Alaska (May 27, 2016)
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