{"id":6525,"date":"2020-06-17T20:35:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T00:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6525"},"modified":"2020-06-17T20:38:06","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T00:38:06","slug":"cares-act-litigation-agua-caliente-band-of-cahuilla-indians-v-mnuchin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/2020\/06\/17\/cares-act-litigation-agua-caliente-band-of-cahuilla-indians-v-mnuchin\/","title":{"rendered":"CARES Act Litigation: Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Mnuchin"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"embed-responsive  embed-responsive-16by9\"><div class=\"iframe-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"embed-responsive-item\"   title=\"&#039;8 billion dollars for our tribal governments&#039;: #COVID19 and Indian Country\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WiTaaygXMzY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n<p>The Trump administration on June 17, 2020, filed a notice in <em>Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Mnuchin<\/em>, announcing distribution of an additional $679 million from the coronavirus relief fund.<\/p>\n<p>The notice comes two days after a federal judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/2020\/06\/17\/we-got-these-monies-late-trump-administr.asp\">ordered the additional money to be released<\/a>. According to government attorneys, the payment are going out &#8220;imminently.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pursuant to the Court\u2019s recent Order, Treasury began today to disburse the $679 million that Treasury otherwise intended to withhold,&#8221; the <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/04517885990.pdf\">two-page notice<\/a> states.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PDF: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/04517885990.pdf\">Notice By Defendant<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Additionally, the notice states that no money will be set aside for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbpindiantribe.com\">Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation<\/a>, whose <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6188\">lawsuit against the Trump administration<\/a> seeks an additional $7.65 million from the COVID-19 fund. The <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6483\">tribe is appealing to a higher court<\/a> in hopes of securing the money.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Amit P. Mehta <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6445\">ordered the funds to be released<\/a> late in the day on June 15. &nbsp;Tribal governments waited long enough for shares of the $8 billion coronavirus relief fund they were promised more than two months ago, his decision stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Congress plainly recognized the immediate need for emergency funds to assist Tribal governments in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by the remarkably short 30-day deadline to distribute the aid,&#8221; Mehta wrote in the ruling. &#8220;Each day that passes in which plaintiffs have not received their full allotment of funds impairs their capacity to respond to the crisis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PDF:&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/ac061620.pdf\">Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Mnuchin<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On March 27, President Donald Trump signed the <a href=\"\/m.asp?url=https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/policy-issues\/cares\">Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act<\/a>, also known as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/Video\/2020\/03\/30\/cares-act-coronavirus-relief-f.asp\">CARES Act<\/a>. The law directed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.treasury.gov\/\">Department of the Treasury<\/a> to distribute $8 billion to tribal governments &#8220;not later than 30 days&#8221; after its enactment.<\/p>\n<p>Treasury failed to meet the deadline after telling tribes to submit data that ended up leaking into the public domain. Instead, on May 5, the department announced a distribution of $4.8 billion from the coronavirus relief fund. Most tribes started seeing the money in their accounts on that day.<\/p>\n<p>A second round of $3.2 billion was promised by early June, but only after tribes were required to submit additional information. After the deadline was missed, Treasury started disbursing payments on June 12 &#8212; yet still&nbsp;withheld $679 million from tribes even though Mehta determined that doing so was not necessary.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/2020\/06\/12\/04517874919.pdf\">June 11 ruling<\/a>&nbsp;in the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation&#8217;s case, Mehta said &#8220;it would be patently unfair to make Tribal governments wait any longer to receive the remaining CARES Act funds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6399\">Treasury&#8217;s June 12 announcement<\/a>, tribes did not see the money in their accounts until June 15. A <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6396\">hearing that morning<\/a> eventually led to <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6445\">Mehta&#8217;s ruling later in the day<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs in&nbsp;<em>Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Mnuchin<\/em>&nbsp;are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (California)<\/li>\n<li>Ak-Chin Indian Community (Arizona)<\/li>\n<li>Northern Arapaho Tribe (Wyoming)<\/li>\n<li>Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma)<\/li>\n<li>Snoqualmie Tribe (Washington)<\/li>\n<li>Yurok Tribe (California)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration on June 17, 2020, filed a notice in Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Mnuchin, announcing distribution of an additional $679 million from the coronavirus relief fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[613,390,38,566,64,235],"class_list":["post-6525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-institutions","tag-amit-mehta","tag-cares-act","tag-dc","tag-judiciary","tag-pbp","tag-treasury"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6525"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6530,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6525\/revisions\/6530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}