{"id":379507,"date":"2026-01-15T09:57:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=379507"},"modified":"2026-01-15T15:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T21:50:29","slug":"grist-miccosukee-tribe-hits-roadblock-in-protecting-homelands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2026\/01\/15\/grist-miccosukee-tribe-hits-roadblock-in-protecting-homelands\/","title":{"rendered":"Grist: Miccosukee Tribe hits roadblock in protecting homelands"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Betty
Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, walks in the Everglades near the entrance to Alligator Alcatraz on July 10, 2025, in Ochopee, Florida. Photo: Joe Raedle \/ Getty Images via Grist<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land.<\/div>\r\n
After the tribe sued to stop an immigration detention center, the White House vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded Miccosukee land and environmental stewardship.\r\n<\/div>\r\n
Thursday, January 15, 2026<\/div>\r\n
By Miacel Spotted Elk, Grist<\/div>\r\n
grist.org<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“This story was originally published by Grist<\/a>. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here<\/a>.”<\/em>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Last Thursday, Republicans in the House failed to override<\/a> President Donald Trump\u2019s first two vetoes in office: a pipeline project<\/a> that would bring safe drinking water to rural Colorado, and another that would return land to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida. Their inability to block the president\u2019s move signals their commitment to the White House over their prior support for the measures.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Miccosukee have always considered the Florida Everglades their home. So when Republicans in Congress voted to expand the tribe\u2019s land base<\/a> under the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act \u2014 legislation that would transfer 30 acres of land in the Everglades to tribal control \u2014 the Miccosukee were thrilled. After years of work, the move would have allowed the tribe to begin environmental restoration activities in the area and better protect it from climate change impacts<\/a> as extreme flooding and tropical storms threaten the land.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThe measure reflected years of bipartisan work and was intended to clarify land status and support basic protections for tribal members who have lived in this area for generations,\u201d wrote Chairman Talbert Cypress in a statement<\/a> late last month, \u201cbefore the roads and canals were built, and before Everglades National Park was created.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The act was passed<\/a> on December 11, but on December 30, President Donald Trump vetoed it; one of only two vetoes made by the administration since he took office. In a statement<\/a>, Trump explained that the tribe \u201cactively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,\u201d after the tribe\u2019s July lawsuit challenging the construction of \u201cAlligator Alcatraz,\u201d an immigration detention center in the Everglades.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cIt is rare for an administration to veto a bill for reasons wholly unrelated to the merits of the bill,\u201d said Kevin Washburn, a law professor at University of California Berkeley Law and former assistant secretary of Indian affairs for the Department of the Interior. Washburn added that while denying land return to a tribe is a political act, Trump\u2019s move is \u201chighly unusual.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When a tribe regains land, the process can be long and costly. The process, known as \u201cland into trust<\/a>\u201d transfers a land title from a tribe to the United States, where the land is then held for the benefit of the tribe and establishes tribal jurisdiction over the land in question. When tribal nations signed treaties in the 19th century ceding land, any lands reserved for tribes \u2014 generally, reservations \u2014 were held by the federal government \u201cin trust\u201d for the benefit of tribes, meaning that tribal nations don\u2019t own these lands despite their sovereign status.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Almost all land-into-trust requests are facilitated at an administrative level<\/a> by the Department of Interior. The Miccosukee, however, generally must follow a different process<\/a>. Recognized as a tribal nation by the federal government in 1962, the Miccosukee navigate a unique structure for acquiring tribal land where these requests are made through Congress via legislation instead of by the Interior Department.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ironic, right?\u201d said Matthew Fletcher, a law professor at the University of Michigan. \u201cYou\u2019re acquiring land that your colonizer probably took from you a long time ago and then gave it away to or sold it to someone else, and then years later, you\u2019re buying that land back that was taken from you illegally, at a great expense.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

While land-into-trust applications related to tribal gaming operations often meet opposition, Fletcher says applications like the Miccosukee\u2019s are usually frictionless. And in cases like the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act<\/a>, which received bipartisan support at the state and federal levels, in-trust applications are all but guaranteed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On the House floor on Thursday before the vote, Florida\u2019s Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said<\/a>, \u201cThis bill is so narrowly focused that [the veto] makes absolutely no sense other than the interest in vengeance that seems to have emanated in this result.\u201d The bill\u2019s sponsor, Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida, did not respond to requests for comment. In July last year, Gimenez referred to the Miccosukee Tribe as stewards of the Everglades, sponsoring the bill as a way to manage water flow and advance an elevation project, under protection from the Department of the Interior, for the village to avert \u201ccatastrophic flooding.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re asking is for people in the same political party of the guy who just vetoed this thing to affirmatively reject the political decision of the president,\u201d Fletcher said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The tribe is unlikely to see its village project materialize under Trump\u2019s second term unless the outcome of this year\u2019s midterms results in a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. Studies<\/a> show that the return of land to tribes provides the best outcomes for the climate.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

This article originally appeared in Grist<\/a> at https:\/\/grist.org\/indigenous\/the-miccosukee-tribe-blocked-alligator-alcatraz-then-trump-blocked-a-bill-to-return-their-land\/<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org<\/a><\/p>\r\n