The Interior Department says complaints that challenge the constitutionality of its decision to acquire 13,000 acres in trust for the Oneida Nation of New York should be dismissed.

The state, two counties and other groups have raised the constitutionality issue in their lawsuits. Government attorneys say those claims should be removed from the complaints.

Nearly every circuit court has upheld the constitutionality of the land-into-trust process. The has been asked to hear the issue several times but has declined to do so.

Even if constitutionality issues are stricken from the complaints, the lawsuit raise other issues against the land-into-trust decision for the Oneidas.

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U.S. wants constitutional issues dropped (The Oneida Dispatch 10/8)