LETTER: ‘Yet another broken promise to sovereign tribal governments’

Indianz.Com > COVID-19 > LETTER: ‘Yet another broken promise to sovereign tribal governments’

Posted: May 27, 2020

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico) are calling on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 in Indian Country.

“This unprecedented pandemic is having a severe impact on American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people,” Warren and Haaland write in a four-page letter on May 26, 2020. “The Administration’s failure to uphold the trust responsibility to provide adequate relief, health services, and public safety resources to tribal communities has exacerbated the pandemic’s impact. This failure requires the Commission’s voice.”

“The federal government’s insufficient response to this crisis to date represents yet another broken promise to sovereign tribal governments,” the lawmakers add in asking the commission to update its recent “Broken Promises” report with findings about the COVID-19 pandemic.

LETTER: ‘Yet another broken promise to sovereign tribal governments‘

Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts, is a former Democratic candidate for U.S. president. Haaland, a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna, is one of the first two Native women to serve in the U.S. Congress.