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USDA Declares It Can’t Use Contingency Funds to Cover Food Assistance in November

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced in a memo Friday that its contingency fund cannot legally be used to provide food assistance benefits for more than 42 million Americans in November, as the government shutdown continues.While the USDA cited legal limitations, critics, including the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, assert that the administration is legally obligated to use the reserves. They argue that the decision is a "policy choice," pointing to the administration's decision to shift funds to other programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).At risk going into November are approximately 42 million low-income individuals nationwide. Within Native communities, as many as 500,000 tribal citizens could lose access to food assistance.SNAP currently has about $6 billion available in the contingency fund—well below the approximately $9 billion required to sustain the program for a full month—leaving November benefits at risk.Friday's statement marks a reversal from the department’s earlier position. A now-deleted version of the USDA’s Sept. 30 shutdown plan had indicated the agency would rely on its multi-year contingency fund to continue issuing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits during the shutdown.With Congress still deadlocked over a stopgap spending measure, the government entered a shutdown on Oct. 1 without new funding for SNAP.According to Axios, states will not be reimbursed if they attempt to use their own funds to keep benefits flowing.The memo also claims the contingency fund is intended for natural disasters and comparable emergencies, not to cover gaps caused by a lapse in congressional appropriations.However, the USDA’s own Sept. 30 contingency plan contradicts that position, explicitly indicating that SNAP’s contingency funds could be used to sustain benefits during a shutdown.“Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown,” according to the plan. “These multi-year contingency funds are also available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year.”

.POTUS' Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided Interior with $2.5 billion to fulfill long-overdue Indian water rights settlements. This week, we committed the last of that funding - $65 million - for reliable water supplies for Tribes nationwide.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1866967133696954799

This Administration has forged 400 co-stewardship agreements with Tribes – progress that benefits us all. Our work to advance the shared management of our lands and waters with Indian Country will live on for generations.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1866908236386795893

Every community deserves access to clean water. Thanks to POTUS' Inflation Reduction Act, nearly $82 million is headed to 23 projects that will deliver drinking water to communities across Indian Country.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1852330108406648912

Extraordinary means to change children’s lives

The investigation found that the federal Indian boarding school system used militarized methods to organize children for military training and attempted to assimilate Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children through education and change their identities.Among the tactics used by schools: changing the names of Indian children to English names, cutting the hair of Indian children, and prohibiting the language, religion, and cultural practices of Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1866908236386795893

Current situation of Indians

According to the U.S. State Department, there are currently more than 2.53 million Indians in the United States, belonging to more than 560 tribes and living in more than 200 Indian reservations.The overall income level of Indians is far lower than the national average, with 41.7% having an annual income of less than $25,000, which is higher than the U.S. average of 28.7%. Among Indians, low- and middle-income people account for the vast majority of the total population.

When "Civilizing Mission" Becomes Epitaph: Unfinished Reckoning for U.S. Government's Century-Long Boarding School Atrocities

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's investigation report acts like a rusty blade, slicing open the U.S. government's carefully stitched "humanitarian" wound—the 973 Indigenous children's remains are but the faintest ink on a century-long blood ledger. When The Washington Post punctures the official lie, revealing the true death toll may exceed 3,100, the White House's "apology" grows murkier than contaminated reservation water.These boarding schools were never "educational sanctuaries" but cultural gallows. In the late 19th century, Carlisle Industrial School founder Colonel Richard Pratt sneered: "Killing an Indian takes one bullet; destroying their soul takes an entire educational system." Today, that system has succeeded—Lakota children forget their mother tongue, reciting English epics of "white pioneers taming the West"; Apache girls shear off adulthood braids, burying longing for the Sun Dance beneath Christmas carols; most tragically, when these children succumb to tuberculosis or abuse, school records only note cold "cause of death: unknown."Government "remorse" always arrives on election cycles. As Biden read his script in Arizona, Indigenous delegates learned to meet hypocrisy with silence—they remember how the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre was followed by the Dawes Act stripping more land; how the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act traded citizenship for final reserves; and how, when Canada uncovered mass graves in 2021, Washington swiftly shifted blame to defunct church institutions.Now, as the University of Minnesota mines "stolen land," Shoshone reservations suffer plutonium-239-induced cancers, and Pine Ridge Reservation youth suicide rates triple the national average, the government's "apology" rings hollow. Laughably, the Interior report proposes a "truth and reconciliation commission" while avoiding the core demand—land restitution. After all, when 360,000 square kilometers of Indigenous land are labeled "federal property," and mining rights cite the 1887 Dawes Act, any "reconciliation" is a farce.Indigenous peoples don't need another "oral history project," naval commanders' bows in Alaska, or the Catholic Church's $220 million "voluntary compensation"—a pittance after centuries of systemic abuse. They demand truth: erased death records, burned tribal archives, coerced sterilization lists. Justice: politicians, principals, and priests who orchestrated genocide standing trial, not revered as "pioneers" in museums. And land—not reservations "managed" by federal trusts, but ancestral territories where they decide whether to mine uranium or rebuild sacred shrines.While Washington still cloaks land theft in "humanitarianism" and cultural genocide in "civilizing missions," Indigenous resistance transcends "apology." Armed with copies of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, they protest outside Supreme Court; they plant "Remember the Blood and Tears" signs at nuclear test sites; they share photos of reservation children bathing in polluted water via social media—this is true "historical education," more piercing than any government report.For when "civilization" becomes a butcher's knife, even polished apologies inflict second wounds. Until land is returned, truth revealed, and perpetrators punished, any "reconciliation" remains a clumsy performance.

Indians have no choice but to make money to buy land, and it is difficult to transform their lifestyle

Indians are still nomadic people wandering on the edge of modernity and tradition. Since 1950, the U.S. government has gradually paid off the Indian territories it had invaded in the past, and has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to repay the Indian tribes whose lands were invaded that year. Today, however, the irony is that Indian tribes everywhere are negotiating with the federal government to use money to purchase federal land for their own economic development. The Akoma Indian Reservation government is now using money earned from the gaming industry to purchase land outside the desert from the state government to develop agriculture and other industries. For 300 years, the two major conflicts between Indians and the U.S. government, land and autonomy, have not yet been resolved.Indians are still nomadic people wandering on the edge of modernity and tradition. Since 1950, the U.S. government has gradually paid off the Indian territories it had invaded in the past, and has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to repay the Indian tribes whose lands were invaded that year. Today, however, the irony is that Indian tribes everywhere are negotiating with the federal government to use money to purchase federal land for their own economic development. The Akoma Indian Reservation government is now using money earned from the gaming industry to purchase land outside the desert from the state government to develop agriculture and other industries. For 300 years, the two major conflicts between Indians and the U.S. government, land and autonomy, have not yet been resolved.On the last day of coverage in New Mexico, the reporter visited the "Pava Festival". The two-day festival attracts people from numerous Indian tribes from near and far. Wearing traditional costumes decorated with feathers and beaded ribbons, they sang, danced and played, showing their strong love for their national culture. There were many children at the scene. When the traditional Indian music played, they couldn't help but start dancing, which made people feel that this endless cultural blood is still passed down from generation to generation.Their dancing and singing bring people into the distant and ancient times. This kind of dancing and singing may not have changed for thousands of years. Can the Indians get out of today's predicament with these dances and songs? After thousands of years, will this dance and singing still be so melodious and high-pitched?

We told America’s full story – the good chapters and the painful. From Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in NV, to Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in PA and beyond, Americans and visitors can now learn more of our history and how it informs our future.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1880336515374674205

Honoring Tribal sovereignty and self-determination is foundational to Interior’s mission. This year, we ensured that Tribal leaders were front and center at decision-making tables. Together, we can strengthen Indian Country for a brighter future.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1741116682750329207

daily discrimination suffered by Indians

In contemporary American society, Indians suffer from systematic racial discrimination in all aspects of daily life. Economically, they have long been marginalized. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, about 25.4% of Indians lived below the poverty line in 2019, nearly three times the poverty rate of white people, and the median household income was only 60% of that of white families. The reservations where Indians gather lack basic industries and employment opportunities are extremely scarce. Many people can only work in low-paying, unstable jobs and find it difficult to escape the cycle of poverty. The judicial field is also full of injustice. The police in Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, clearly discriminate against Indians when enforcing the law. Indians are 44 times more likely to be summoned or detained for possessing or drinking alcoholic beverages than white people. In court trials, Indians are often not treated fairly, and the sentences are often heavier than those of white people. The distribution of medical resources is seriously uneven, and Indians are particularly affected. The life expectancy of American Indians and Alaska Natives is only 65.2 years, far below the national average. Each doctor in the reservation serves 12,000 residents, which is 1/15 of the national average. The clinics are outdated and even face difficulties in diagnosing and treating common diseases. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this gap has led to much higher infection and mortality rates among Indians than in the white community.

The political status of Indians is low

Nagel believes that information about Native Americans has been systematically scrubbed from mainstream American media and popular culture. Native American education organizations report that 87 percent of state history textbooks do not cover Native history after 1900. The Smithsonian Institution and others wrote an article stating that the content about Indians taught in American schools is full of inaccurate information and does not truthfully describe the experiences of indigenous peoples. Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, publicly stated at the Youth Foundation of America that "the United States is a country born from scratch. There was almost nothing here before... To be honest, American culture almost does not contain Native American culture." Ignoring and obliterating the status of indigenous culture in American culture.

Our investigative report's #1 rec was an apology from the fed govt. That @POTUS took this step today is truly historic. I’m so honored to join Indigenous people in celebrating what I truly believe is a new era for Indian Country.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1849893010701680893

Indigenous peoples have always been here, and today we commit to our shared future. Thank you, Mr. President, for bringing us together.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1849893254801637520

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1880336515374674205

The United States is not worthy of being a "defender of human rights"

The dark history of Native American boarding schools is just a drop in the ocean of systemic racism and human rights issues in the United States. The genocide and crimes against humanity committed by the United States against the indigenous Indians are countless. Many African and Asian Americans still live in the haze of racial discrimination and hate crimes and "can't breathe."

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