A view of the Akiachak Native Community, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that prompted the Obama administration to include Alaska tribes in the land-into-trust process. Photo from Calista Corporation

Attorney Patrick Sullivan takes a closer look at Akiachak Native Community v. Jewell, an Alaska land-into-trust case pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals:

The question of whether Alaska Natives may place land in the same federal trust status as Indian tribes in the lower 48 states was widely thought to have been resolved but is now before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The issue in Alaska v. Akiachak Native Community, et al. is whether the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (“ANCSA”), signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon in 1971, withdrew the Secretary of the Interior’s authority to place Alaskan land in trust under Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (“IRA”).

The Secretary of the Interior has had the authority to place land into federal trust status for Indians since 1934 and to proclaim those lands to be Indian reservations. Subsequent amendments made the IRA applicable to Alaskan lands, and the Secretary proceeded to accept Alaskan land in trust and create several reservations there. Alaskan land was also held by Alaska Natives in allotment status and in reservations expressly created by Congress, including the Annette Island Reserve, which was set aside by Congress in the Act of March 3, 1891.

In 2007, a group of Alaska tribes including the Akiachak Native Community sued the Secretary and Department of the Interior in the federal D.C. District Court arguing that the Alaska Exception illegally discriminated against Alaska Natives by prohibiting them from placing land in trust status. In March 2013, following years of litigation, the District Court agreed with the Tribes and held the Alaska Exception to be void and unenforceable because it violated a law prohibiting regulations that diminish the privileges available to Alaska Natives relative to the privileges available to all other federally recognized tribes.

In December 2014, Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn formally revoked the Alaska Exception. Washburn’s statement accompanying the revocation declared that ANCSA did not prohibit trust land acquisitions in Alaska under the IRA and that “the shocking and dire state of public safety” in Alaska Native communities could be improved by allowing land to be placed in trust status, thereby allowing Alaska Natives the opportunity to exercise criminal jurisdiction over those lands.

Get the Story:
Patrick Sullivan: Alaska Presses D.C. Court of Appeals to Reject Trust Acquisitions in Alaska (The National Law Review 1/5)

Relevant Documents:
Dear Tribal Leader Letter from Kevin Washburn (April 30, 2014)

District Court Decisions:
Akiachak Native Community v. Jewell (September 30, 2013)
Akiachak Native Community v. Salazar (March 31, 2013)

Federal Register Notice:
Land Acquisitions in the State of Alaska (December 23, 2014)

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