The Lumbee Tribe is awaiting word from the nation’s capital about its long-running quest for federal recognition.

The Lumbees are a state-recognized group from North Carolina. They have been seeking a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States for more than a century.

“As Chairman, I stand on the shoulders of so many of our ancestors who began this journey in the 1800’s and I take their memories and hard work with me every day,” John L. Lowery, the tribe’s leader, said in an update to Lumbee citizens last week.

According to Lowery, the Department of the Interior (DOI) is preparing a “report” about avenues for extending federal recognition to the Lumbees. He said he had two “consultation meetings” with officials from the cabinet-level agency in March, following an initial meeting that took place on February 11.

“The DOI officials have been very welcoming and enthusiastic while consulting with us,” Lowery said in the update.

The activity at DOI was set in motion by President Donald Trump. In a memorandum on January 23, he ordered the Secretary of the Interior to come up with a “plan to assist the Lumbee Tribe in obtaining full Federal recognition through legislation or other available mechanisms, including the right to receive full Federal benefits.”

“I love the Lumbee Tribe,” Trump said as he signed the document at the White House, just three days after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.

At the time, former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum had not yet been confirmed as Secretary of the Interior, a cabinet-level position. Nonetheless, Trump gave him 90 days to come up with the plan for assisting the Lumbees — a deadline that arrives on April 23, Chairman Lowery pointed out in his update.

“I look forward to the DOI’s report and working with them and Trump Administration officials to finally get our tribe across this goal line,” Lowery said.

Burgum, who won bipartisan support for his nomination as Secretary, has not publicly spoken about the federal recognition directive from the White House. DOI did not immediately return a request for comment, placed later in the afternoon on Tuesday, about the Lumbee deadline.

But beyond the three meetings that Lowery said he had with DOI, the agency has not engaged in any consultation or outreach with other Indian nations about the Lumbees, according to a policy expert who has been closely monitoring the issue. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the only federally-recognized tribe headquartered in North Carolina, has long expressed doubts, concerns and outright opposition.

“There are some state groups in the state of North Carolina, that are not federally recognized, that are receiving substantial funds, and we think that is concerning,” Eastern Cherokee Chief Michell Hicks said in Congressional testimony in February.

“They found loopholes within the systems,” Hicks asserted on February 26.

In testimony to lawmakers responsible for writing the appropriations bill that funds DOI, Hicks did not single out the Lumbees by name. But he said Congress should examine why state-recognized groups have been receiving federal funds despite lacking a government-to-government relationship with the U.S.

“We think, you know, as you guys go through this evaluation process, that that would be beneficial to take a peek at, you know, some of these funding levels that are not supporting federally recognized tribes,” Hicks said at a hearing in Washington, D.C.

“But it’s state recognized groups that are achieving some of this funding — and it’s substantial dollars,” Hicks concluded.

Through an initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Trump has sought to drastically reduce the size of the executive branch. Countless numbers of employees who served Indian Country have been fired, millions of dollars in grants that funded Indian organizations have been terminated and programs started by the prior administration have all come to a halt over the last 90 days as part of an effort to curtail spending at DOI and other federal agencies by at least $2 trillion.

According to doge.gov, DOI is currently ranked 11 out of 22 in terms of “Most Savings.” The agency’s ranking has risen three positions in the “Agency Efficiency Leaderboard” on the website, which was last updated on Sunday but does not contain any details about how much money has supposedly been saved at the agency with the most trust and treaty responsibilities to tribes and their communities.

Extending federal acknowledgment to the Lumbees — who claim a membership of more than 60,000 — might send DOI’s back down the rankings chart. According to the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), representing more than 50 tribes in mostly Western states, and the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma (UINO), representing 38 tribes in Oklahoma, Lumbee recognition could cost taxpayers $1.74 billion over the next five years.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Indian Health Service (IHS), is currently ranked at the top of the doge.gov leaderboard. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), extending IHS care to an estimated 44,000 eligible Lumbee citizens would cost about $1,700 for each person every year, or around $75 million a year.

The CBO’s cost estimate noted that the Lumbees — like other state-recognized groups — already receive federal funding from the Department of Education, which Trump is proposing to eliminate altogether, and from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The two agencies are currently ranked third and sixth, respectively, well above DOI’s position on the doge.gov leaderboard.

The cost of providing “full federal benefits,” which is the wording Trump used in his memo, has long been an issue as Congress has considered legislation to extend recognition to the Lumbees. But after the CBO delivered its last estimate in 2022, supportive lawmakers on Capitol Hill changed the language of a bill they are calling the Lumbee Fairness Act.

The bill, introduced as H.R.474 in the U.S. House of Representatives and S.107 in the U.S. Senate, no longer includes a section titled “Authorization of Appropriations.” The change in language allows supporters to argue that extending federal recognition to the Lumbees does not mandate the U.S. government to spend any money, as prior versions had.

“Regarding the Lumbee, in one fell swoop, the federal government would recognize a tribe that would then soon be the largest in the country, and all enrolled members would likely gain full access to all federal benefits, which will further strain the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services’ already stressed budgets,” Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-North Carolina) said in a speech on the House floor last September.

“That said, if the overall tribal population covered by the services is allowed to swell by tens of thousands of people — many of whom have no Native ancestry — I fear that necessary appropriations cannot feasibly keep pace,” said Edwards, whose district includes the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Groups seeking federal recognition typically submit a petition to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is part of DOI. The Lumbees did just that in 1987.

The BIA, however, never took action at the time because the administration of then-president George H.W. Bush — a Republican — said a federal law commonly known as the Lumbee Act of 1956 barred consideration of the petition. The statute has been viewed as “terminating” or “forbidding” a federal relationship with the “Lumbee Indians of North Carolina.”

It took more than 20 years and a Democrat in the White House for a major change in federal policy. In 2009, then-president Barack Obama endorsed Congressional recognition for the Lumbees — a move that drew fire from Republican lawmakers.

“I just find that rather strange,” the highest-ranking Republican on the House Committee on Natural Resources said of the shift in stance at a hearing in March 2009.

And after Congress failed to pass the Lumbee recognition bill, the Obama administration again took action. In 2016, the first Native person to serve as Solicitor at DOI used her position as the highest-ranking legal official at the agency to issue a new policy which said the BIA could consider a Lumbee federal recognition petition.

Despite the win, the Lumbees over the last decade have not asked the BIA’s Office of Federal Acknowledgment to consider the previously-submitted petition, which was designated number 65 at the agency. Nor has another petition been sent to Washington for review, a process that could take years.

Copies of the 1987 Lumbee petition are available at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian National Anthropological Archives. The version held by the Smithsonian is an original that was provided by one of the authors, according to staff at the facility in Suitland, Maryland, located just outside of Washington, D.C.