TRIBAL VICTORY
Administration ordered to reconsider Mashpee Wampanoag ruling
A federal judge blasted a 2018 Trump administration declaration as “arbitrary, capricious” and “abuse of discretion,” that 321 acres of Mashpee Wampanoag tribe reservation land in Mashpee and Taunton does not qualify as “Indian.”
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman granted the tribe’s motion for summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia case — Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe v. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt — in which the tribe argued that the interior secretary failed to properly consider extensive factual evidence it submitted to make the case that it should be eligible for land in trust. The judge remanded the matter to the Department of the Interior to reconsider.
Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell said Friedman “righted what would have been a terrible and historic injustice.”
“While we are pleased with the court’s findings, our work is not done. The Department of Interior must now draft a positive decision for our land as instructed by Judge Friedman. We will continue to work with the Department of the Interior and fight them if necessary to ensure our land remains in trust,” he said.
The tribe’s land in trust status has been under contention for years. The tribe was federally recognized in 2007 and the Obama administration took the land into trust for the tribe in 2016. But the Trump administration has worked to undo that designation at the same time that the tribe has worked to build a $1 billion casino on its land in Taunton.
State Sen. Marc Pacheco, who lives in and represents the city where the Wampanoag tribe hopes to build its casino, said he was pleased with the ruling.
“Throughout the course of this dispute, the tribe has consistently argued that the Department of the Interior failed to apply the correct standards in deciding to invalidate the tribe’s land-intrust — this new ruling certainly seems to validate that argument,” he said. “The court’s recent decision will hopefully prevent the shameful injustice of taking land from the tribe that greeted the Pilgrims as we celebrate the 400th anniversary of their arrival here in the commonwealth.”
In a statement Saturday, U.S. Rep. William Keating said the ruling was a victory for the tribe and a repudiation of the Trump administration’s “policy designed to punish the Mashpee Wampanoag.”
“Judge Friedman described the actions of the administration with regard to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe as arbitrary and capricious. I think that rightly describes the administration’s actions to remove the tribe’s land from trust during the most serious public health emergency of our lifetime, actions that defy reason and basic decency,” Keating said.