“A tribe is only as sovereign as it acts,” has been a common refrain heard by attendees of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) ongoing 79th annual convention and marketplace, held this year in Sacramento, Calif.

Fawn Sharp, president of NCAI and VP of the Quinault Indian Nation, has told attendees that protecting tribal sovereignty is of utmost importance, especially given the U.S. Supreme Court’s June Castro-Huerta ruling — which effectively limited tribal criminal jurisdiction — and the upcoming Brackeen case, to be heard Nov. 9, which will determine the fate of the Indian Child Welfare Act. (Signs here are already pointing negatively for tribes judging by some readings of questions asked this week by justices specifically involving race and American Indians during oral arguments of the widely-watched affirmative action case now before the court.)

Applause and agreement were the obvious responses to Sharp’s words and to similar sentiments expressed by numerous tribal leaders and attendees.

But there is more to the tribal sovereignty protection story — and it is a story that a few dozen of the thousands of tribal disenrollees of tribal nations across the U.S. banded together this week to highlight outside of the NCAI event.

More than 40 protesters attended, according to organizers, and in response to all of NCAI’s talk about the importance of tribal sovereignty, these protesters asked some of their own related questions: “Does tribal sovereignty mean that a tribe should have the right to disenroll its citizens due to political reasons and gaming dollars, or to arbitrarily limit membership?” And: “What is a tribe is without its citizens?”

Rick Cuevas, whose family was disenrolled from the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians in the early 2000s despite evidence that they belong, was one of the organizers of the rally. He and his wife actually made it inside the NCAI convention where he says he was able to speak with the current chairman of Pechanga, Mark Macarro.

Macarro has been in power since 1995, and his tribe’s council has overseen a number of disenrollments over those years, especially as the tribe’s gaming profits have grown. He was elected as the vice president of NCAI in Oct. 2021. He is also well-connected to the Democratic Party — his wife is a lobbyist and Dem political commentator, which some disenrollees believe has hurt their case in getting current Democratic policymakers to address disenrollment.

“Mark was surprised to see me inside and wouldn’t shake my hand,” Cuevas told Indigenous Wire after the encounter. “But as we had a discussion in which he was really shaky, he held his own and weaved quite a web of lies [about my family’s history].”

“I asked what we could do to get before the [tribal] council, and he said the council was on equal footing as the enrollment committee, and we could go through them.”

Despite those words from Macarro, Cuevas doesn’t have a lot of faith that things will change anytime soon for his family with the tribe, nor with NCAI. (Both the organization and the tribe have not responded to requests for comment.)

“This is political,” Cuevas says. “They are okay with sacrificing 11,000 of us on the altar of sovereignty.”

As casino profits have soared over the years at some tribes — even during pandemic times — their tribal governments have disenrolled hundreds of members, likely to limit the number of people eligible for tribal funds and/or programs.

The federal government, despite some legal readings of already on-the-books policy that indicates it could prevent such actions, has so far chosen not to act. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland previously told disenrollees that she would work to address their issues when she served in the U.S. House, but she has yet to do so as a top leader with the Biden administration.

At the same time, recent instances of disenrollment controversies are in the news surrounding the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians and the Nooksack Indian Tribe and issues related to the Freedmen of some Oklahoma tribes.

The general public is slowly learning more about tribal disenrollment, which disenrollees fervently hope will lead to change.

“It was amazing to me how many people had never heard of disenrollment after all this time,” Cuevas said after attending the NCAI convention. He believes that younger Indigenous people are eager to learn more and that they may have the best shot at future success in getting the message across that disenrollment should not be part of the tribal sovereignty equation.

NCAI — dependent in part on tribal membership dues to survive — has been publicly quiet about the protests of these Indigenous people who have had their citizenship systematically stripped away. The organization has been asked numerous times in recent years by these people — some of whom protested this year’s event — to develop policies against disenrollment as a way to actually strengthen tribal sovereignty.

At least one protester was reportedly able to speak to current NCAI President Sharp about the issue during the convention, but Sharp has not made any public statements of support.

Sharp has previously said it is an internal matter for individual tribes to deal with. But privately, some are hopeful that she understands the potential benefit to NCAI, tribes and to Indigenous peoples of aligning a strong tribal sovereignty position with a strong statement against arbitrary political disenrollment.

NCAI would be wise to make a change sooner than later, Cam Foreman told Indigenous Wire after helping organize the protest. He’s a member of a large tribal family that was disenrolled en masse from the Redding Rancheria tribe in 2003 after inter-tribal gaming-related squabbles.

“Condemning tribal disenrollment does not infringe upon tribal sovereignty or any federal self-determination law,” Foreman says. “The NCAI has a decision to make: Will they stand with casino corporations and abuse, or will they stand with the people?”

NCAI also finds itself currently battling a $5-million civil suit from its former CEO Dante Desiderio, who claims he was wrongfully dismissed this summer, based in part on human rights and labor law violations. The organization disputes his charges, yet the costs in terms of optics alone are obvious.

“The NCAI is a non-profit, non-government organization that prides itself on its history of fighting for Native American civil and human rights,” Foreman adds. “They demand the U.S. government respect the rights of Native Americans in the U.S. Constitution and their respective treaties and tribal constitutions.

“Yet for nearly 20 years, members of their own organization have denied the rights of their citizens promised in their treaties and tribal constitutions by disenrolling and banishing thousands of their own people from their tribes, homes and communities.

“They're in a huge fight to protect the ICWA, yet won't raise a voice or finger against children disenrolled and denied their right to belong causing unimaginable psychological trauma.

“They demand justice, truth and reconciliation for ancestors and elders who suffered atrocities at boarding schools, yet won’t condemn the desecration and abuse suffered at the hands of tribal politicians.

“The NCAI needs to acknowledge the harm disenrollment has done to Indian Country and its threat to tribal sovereignty,” Foreman concludes. “The NCAI needs to condemn disenrollment and that it does not align with the beliefs and values of the organization, nor history of any nation since time immemorial until tribal gaming.”