The E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
The plaintiffs in Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Mnuchin released the following statement after a federal judge declined to order the Department of the Treasury to release all $8 billion of the coronavirus relief fund that was promised to tribal governments more than a month ago:
“We view the Court’s order as a positive development. We filed this lawsuit with a singular purpose: to speed up the disbursement of desperately needed COVID-19 relief funding to Indian Country. The lawsuit has now met its goal in two ways. First, it forced Treasury to finally, albeit belatedly, release the first 60% of the $8 billion that Congress appropriated for Tribal governments. Second, Judge Mehta’s order makes crystal clear that Treasury will have to significantly accelerate its timeline for releasing the remaining 40% of the funding. Treasury indicated as recently as last Thursday that it might not disburse the remaining funds for two months, a delay that the Court’s order explicitly says ‘will not be acceptable.’ We agree, and we, along with the Court, will be closely following Treasury’s progress and will not hesitate to renew our motion for immediate relief if Treasury continues to drag its feet.”
The plaintiffs in the case are:
- Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (California)
- Ak-Chin Indian Community (Arizona)
- Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation (Wyoming)
- Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma)
- Chickasaw Nation (Oklahoma)
- Choctaw Nation (Oklahoma)
- Snoqualmie Tribe (Washington)
- Yurok Tribe (California)
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