Appeals court weighs tribe’s quest for casino land

Boston — A Native American tribe’s long-running effort to secure sovereign land for a casino in Massachusetts is now in the hands of a federal appeals court in Boston.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit heard arguments Wednesday in an appeal brought by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which was granted hundreds of acres of land in trust by the federal government before a judge overturned the decision in 2016.

The three-judge panel, which included retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, pressed lawyers on the legal particulars of the case, but are expected to rule later.

Lawyers for the casino opponents declined to comment, but tribe leaders said the case represents more than the promise of a new casino.

Uncertainty about the tribe’s trust lands, which were declared a tribal reservation by the Obama administration, has also created funding problems and other complications for the tribe’s government programs and services, said Cedric Cromwell, the tribe’s chairman.

“We’re hurting, and we’ve carried this burden for so long,” he said. “We’re just asking for justice. We want to live and provide for our elders and our children.”

The tribe and its supporters have said the case sets a dangerous precedent as it represents the first time in the modern era that a tribe has had trust lands stripped away.

“It’s about our tribal rights. The land that we live on. The blood and bones of our ancestors,” Cromwell said. “We’ve never moved. We’ve always remained here. We should have our land intact. That’s what it’s really about.”

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe was granted 321 acres of land in trust in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama, a move that carved out the federally-protected land needed for the tribe to develop its planned $1 billion First Light casino, hotel and entertainment resort.

But a group of residents sued, arguing the federal government couldn’t take land into trust for the tribe because it wasn’t officially recognized as of June 1, 1934. That was the year the federal Indian Reorganization Act, which laid the foundation for modern federal Indian policy, became law.

The Cape Cod-based tribe, which traces its ancestry to the Native Americans that shared a fall harvest meal with the Pilgrims in 1621, wasn’t federally recognized until 2007.

A federal judge in 2016 ruled in favor of the residents, sending the decision back to the Interior Department for reconsideration.

The tribe halted the casino project, which it had broken ground on in Taunton, a city south of Boston where some of its trust lands were located.