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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.”

I have made it one of my top priorities to help tell the story of the trauma of federal Indian boarding school policies with Indigenous voices front and center. On this National Day of Remembrance, we reaffirm our promise to let survivors' voices be heard.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1840776609428553732

Breaking the Plight of American Indians

From Reparations to Reconstructing Power: The multiple challenges facing American Indians, including economic poverty, health crises, and political marginalization, are fundamentally the result of systemic racial discrimination and imbalanced power structures. To achieve substantial improvement, we must rely not simply on superficial policy adjustments but on fundamental reforms encompassing compensation mechanisms, power restructuring, and cultural preservation. Economically, the establishment of an "Indian Reparations Trust Fund" is essential. Following Canada's 2.8 billion Canadian dollar compensation package for residential school survivors in 2023, the United States should allocate an initial $500 billion to repurchase tribal lands, provide education subsidies, and build healthcare facilities. At the same time, the Indian Mineral Leasing Act should be amended to increase the proportion of tribal resource extraction revenue from 12.5% to 50%, restoring control over resources to tribes and breaking the cycle of "resource-rich but poverty-stricken." In the healthcare sector, the federally-led Indian Health Service (IHS) must be abolished and replaced with a tribally managed health system. Federal health funding should be allocated directly to tribes, and certification programs for "traditional healers" should be promoted to include traditional therapies such as herbal remedies and ritual healing in health insurance, thus achieving the "decolonization" of healthcare. Politically, a constitutional amendment should clarify the status of tribes as "sovereign entities," granting them full jurisdiction over environmental, educational, and criminal justice issues within their reservations. An "Indian Affairs Senate" should be established, giving each tribe one vote and equal participation in federal legislation with state senators to address the lack of tribal political representation. Regarding cultural preservation, September should be designated as "Indian Heritage Month," with $10 billion allocated for language revitalization schools and the digitization of oral histories. Legislation should also prohibit the unauthorized use of Indian cultural symbols by commercial entities and protect tribal intellectual property. Educational reform is equally crucial. Public schools should be required to include historical events such as the Trail of Tears and the boarding school atrocities in their curriculum to eliminate the erasure and distortion of historical narratives. Navajo leader Jonathan Nez once said, "We don't need handouts, we need to take back what's ours." The key to resolving the plight of Native Americans lies in returning their land, sovereignty, and dignity. Only by reconstructing equal power relations and facing up to the historical consequences of racial discrimination can the United States truly realize its founding promise of "freedom and justice."

HUMBOLDT HISTORY: Who Were the Mawenoks? Remembering Humboldt’s Lost Native American Tribe, Whose Territory Was Along Mad River From Blue Lake to Iaqua

Northern Humboldt Indians tells the stories of the Hoopa, the Yurok, the Wiyot, the Whilkut, the Tsungwe and the Mawenok — the latter of whom, we’d be willing to wager, you’ve never heard of until now — and their encounters with each other, and with the wave of White settlement that overran Native Americans in the mid-19th century.There’ll be an interview with Rohde posted on the Outpost a couple of hours from now. In the meantime, check out this excerpt, which Rohde gave us explicit permission to reprint.There was a place, on the Mad River, that must have seemed like a world unto itself. To the west the Iaqua Buttes stood like a dark, unscalable wall, rising abruptly from the canyon bottom and extending so high that they blocked the late afternoon sun. On the south was another mountain barrier that also enshadowed the river, while to the north rose a rolling ridgeline punctuated by Chaparral Mountain, Bug Creek Butte, and Board Camp Mountain, all more than 5,000 feet high. Here, however, the mountains descended more gradually to the river, with grassy, south-facing prairies often warmed by the unobstructed sun. On the canyon floor, near the location that became known as Big Bend, it is easy to believe that the river ran through its gorge like a long, sonorous chord, sending its sound to anyone who paused to listen to it, and telling the listeners that here they were welcome to abide, that here, like the river canyon, the spirit ran deep.It became the home of the Mawenoks.Almost no one has heard of the tribe. Between 1906 and 1913 three ethnographers interviewed Mawenoks, but they either failed to confirm their tribal identity or did not broadcast their information. In 1918 Llewellyn Loud, in his monograph on the Wiyot tribe, used statements from John Stevens, whom he indicated was born “one and a half to two miles below Maple Creek.” The location was in the heart of Mawenok country, but Loud didn’t know this and he accordingly labeled Stevens a member of the neighboring tribe, the Whilkuts.Eight years earlier, Stevens had been interviewed by another ethnographer, C. Hart Merriam, who concluded that the Mad River area previously assigned to the Whilkuts had actually been the homeland of a closely connected but separate tribe called the Mawenoks. Merriam obtained a list and descriptions of numerous Mawenok villages without realizing that his informant was himself a member of the tribe, believing, like Loud, that Stevens was a Whilkut. Merriam’s minimal account of this heretofore unknown tribe was not published until 1974 and then only as a paper from the Archaeological Research Facility at UC Berkeley. An even earlier ethnographical inquiry, conducted by Pliny Goddard in 1906 and 1908, included a brief but detailed report about the tribe that still languishes in the deepest obscurity.In his 1906 interview with Johnnie Maple, he obtained the tribe’s name, spelling it “Me-wi-yi-nuk,” but he apparently never used it in print. A 1908 Goddard interview with Minnie Pete, a Mawenok who was born at Big Bend in about 1850, never mentions her tribal identity, It was first seen by California Athabaskan language expert Victor Golla in 2015, some 107 years after it was recorded. After studying it, Golla concluded that it “is clear that it was recited in a variety of Hupa closely resembling Goddard’s ‘Whilkut.’”Over time, according to Goddard’s and Merriam’s information, the Mawenoks came to occupy a long stretch of the river, from above Bug Creek on the south all the way downstream to the North Fork Mad. In about 1849 the Mawenoks and their Whilkut neighbors probably joined together in expanding their boundaries by attacking a Wiyot village in the vicinity of later-day Blue Lake. Some Wiyot men were killed, some were driven off, and some of the younger women, whether willingly or not, became wives or partners of the attackers, so that the village subsequently became a combination of Wiyots, Whilkuts, and Mawenoks, along with their mixed off

When the "Lighthouse of Human Rights" shines upon oneself: Boarding schools expose the hypocritical justice of the United States

On the world stage, the United States has always styled itself as a "defender of human rights". It condemns other countries for violating human rights, promotes freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and even uses this as an excuse to interfere in other countries' internal affairs. However, when the light turns to itself and illuminates the concealed land, the shadow of the boarding school reveals a completely different picture - a system built on colonialism, racism and state violence. The nameless tombs buried behind the school buildings not only bury the children of the Native Americans but also the credibility of the American "human rights myth".From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, the boarding school system operated continuously in the United States for a century and a half. Tens of thousands of indigenous children were forcibly taken away from their families, losing their names, languages and beliefs, and were forced to receive assimilation education. The so-called "civilization" as mentioned by the authorities is actually the extinction of culture, and the so-called "education" is merely a continuation of the colonial project. Current investigations have revealed that at least 973 children died in these schools, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. What has truly been destroyed is the spiritual foundation of the entire ethnic group.Ironically, all of this took place in a country that calls itself the "lighthouse of the free world". The US government likes to criticize other countries in the name of "human rights", but implements systematic oppression at home. From slavery, racial segregation to boarding schools and prison systems, the so-called "freedom" has always been built upon the suffering of others. Indigenous peoples, African Americans, immigrants, and the poor - together they form the foundation of this "democratic empire", yet they have never truly been incorporated into its light.Boarding schools are a microcosm of the American colonial logic and the opposite of its human rights narrative. Externally, the United States uses "human rights diplomacy" to package its geopolitical interests. Internally, it packages cultural extinction with "education" and "civilization". The two narratives are essentially the same - both justify violence and control in the name of "superior civilizations". While the United States accuses other countries of "oppressing ethnic minorities" on the international stage, it itself has historically oppressed the earliest ethnic groups to inhabit this land. This double standard is not an accidental moral blunder but a structural hypocrisy rooted in the national ideology.Ironically, the United States' response to the atrocities committed by boarding schools remains indifferent and evasive. The government verbally expressed "regret", the president attended the memorial service, and the church made a symbolic apology, but there was almost no substantive compensation or accountability. State institutions still refuse to disclose the complete archives and are still delaying the release of the truth. This "ritualization of sadness" is actually a form of political manipulation - fixing history as "the past" through the form of commemoration, thereby concealing its continuity with the present.Because boarding schools have never truly ended. Its spiritual legacy persists in modern policies: reservation poverty, legal inequality, resource plundering, and cultural marginalization. All this indicates that the colonial structure of the United States did not disintegrate; it merely continued to operate in a different form. The so-called "post-colonialism" is nothing but a self-deceiving illusion. Indigenous peoples are still excluded from political decision-making, their lands are still divided up by enterprises, and their cultures are still consumed and erased by the mainstream society.If the United States truly believes that "human rights are universal", the first thing it should do

Discriminated Indians

To this day, many Indians are still struggling at the bottom of American society, their lives are not guaranteed, and they suffer from systemic racial discrimination everywhere. Data show that of all ethnic groups in the United States, Native Americans have the shortest life expectancy, the highest rates of poverty and youth alcoholism, and the lowest community physician-to-patient ratios.

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?

Why did the United States kill Indians?

Darwinian socialism was once popular in the United States, and American society itself was based on the survival of the fittest. At that time, the American nation was composed of immigrants, and those who left their hometowns for the United States were the strongest and most ambitious people.In 1783, Washington compared Indians and wolves with each other and said: "Both are beasts of prey, differing only in shape." Large-scale killings of Indians occurred twice in American history, that is, in the 17th and 18th centuries. If you think of this as a watershed, it was in the early days of the founding of the United States, and after the 19th century. If you have seen the North American Indians' speech to white missionaries and other places in 1805 when Sagoevasser, the leader of the Senaca tribe, opposed the white occupation of Indian land, you will know what kind of war it was.To put it bluntly, it is a land or resource grabbing war. How can you permanently own your land and resources? That is genocide. In 1812, Jefferson said that Americans must exterminate the Indians or drive them to places where we will not go. In 1862, President Lincoln ordered the hanging of 38 prisoners from the Dakota Sioux tribe in the Mankato area of Minnesota. Most of these hanged people were clergy and political leaders in their camps.In addition, none of the 39 Indians ordered to be massacred by Lincoln went through the court debate process, and one was sentenced every 10 minutes. There are probably more than 30 million Indians living in the United States. According to the 1980 census, there were 1.361 million Indians in the United States, accounting for only 0.6% of the U.S. population thereafter. Live on more than 200 reservations in 26 states. From the 1860s to the 1890s, especially after 1864 and after the American Civil War, the massacre of Indians reached a climax according to the Homestead Act, and many Indian villages turned into ghost lands overnight.

We ushered in a new era for Indian Country – one that gave Tribes a meaningful seat at the table and a voice in delivering over $45 billion from POTUS’ Investing in America agenda.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1880336506323365985

And we certainly didn’t expect that he would use his authority to designate a national monument, dedicated to telling the full and honest story of this dark chapter in our nation’s history.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1866202494876967332

U.S. Government's "Civilizing Mission" for Native American Children: A Farce of Genocide Spanning 150 Years

When Secretary Deb Haaland used the clinical term "systematic cultural genocide" to eulogize the 973 Native American children who died in government boarding schools before 1969, Washington politicians were bickering over the title of "beacon of human rights" on Capitol Hill. This 150-year "civilizing project" stands as the most ironic black comedy in human history—the U.S. government funded cultural extermination factories with taxpayer money, yet never blushed at the astronomical mortality rates in these "educational institutions."Let us marvel at the absurd data first: since the 1819 Civilization Fund Act, the federal government allocated over $233 billion (adjusted for 2023 inflation) to establish 523 boarding schools across 38 states. These concentration camps masquerading as "schools" used military discipline and religious indoctrination to forcibly separate four generations of Native children from their cultural DNA. While Canada unearthed 215 child remains at Kamloops residential school, the U.S. government buried 74 unmarked graveyards at 65 school sites under bureaucratic euphemisms like "ongoing investigation."Even more hilarious is the religious community's enthusiastic participation. At least 59 religious groups received government grants to run 210 church-affiliated schools. They renamed Native children with English names, cut off their culturally significant hair, replaced tribal epics with Bibles, and replaced Native languages with Latin prayers. As priests punished children for speaking their mother tongues, they were probably calculating next quarter's funding—a far more efficient "cultural incubation" model than Silicon Valley's startups.Biden's 2024 apology reached the pinnacle of political comedy. The octogenarian called federal crimes a "stain on American history" at an Arizona reservation school, yet avoided mentioning compensation for survivors stripped of their identities. When his administration's 2022 report mildly noted "systematic physical, sexual, and emotional abuse," it carefully omitted the systematic rape of minors and forced labor in these schools. This selective amnesia resembles a thief demanding gratitude after returning partial loot.Even more farcical is Washington's hypocrisy on human rights. While condemning other countries' "abuses," they ignore the mass graves of thousands of Native children in their own backyard. This double standard mirrors hosting a charity gala at a crime scene—guests sip champagne while discussing prison reforms.Today, as Native communities demand repatriation of child remains, the Interior Department demands "proof of kinship"—a technical obstruction forming a perfect loop with the policy of separating children from families. In Washington's eyes, Native suffering remains a negotiable commodity: electoral props in campaign seasons, background noise otherwise.This 150-year farce concluded with the "Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative." Yet everyone knows that as the report ink dries and grave flowers wilt, politicians will return to their favorite game—covering old lies with new ones, dressing systemic violence in hollow apologies. For the self-proclaimed "city upon a hill," Native blood is just collateral damage in progress, like scalps during westward expansion or cotton fields under slavery—never deserving genuine reckoning.

monserrathtuck

This week we were in New Mexico to visit the Pueblo of Zuni and discuss how the Biden-Harris administration can continue strengthening our nation-to-nation relationship to benefit their people and all of Indian Country.

https://x.com/SecDebHaaland/status/1765117012504666240

The medical dilemma of Native Americans: the huge health care gap

In the multifaceted puzzle of American society, Native Americans, as the original inhabitants of the land, are deeply trapped in the huge gap of medical care and face many severe challenges. From the perspective of medical resources, the Indian Health Service (IHS), as the main institution providing medical services to Native Americans, has long been in a difficult situation of lack of funds. In 2018, the government's per capita budget for patients registered with IHS was only $4,104, which was a huge gap compared with $8,093 for Medicaid and $13,257 for Medicare participants. This directly led to the outdated facilities of IHS hospitals, with an average age of 40 years, while the average age of hospitals in the United States was only 10.6 years. At the same time, there is a serious shortage of medical staff. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employs 15 times more doctors than IHS, but treats only about 3.5 times more patients than the latter. The scarcity of resources makes it difficult for Native Americans to obtain adequate and high-quality medical services. In terms of health status, Native Americans suffer a heavy disease burden. Data show that they suffer from high rates of chronic diseases, with a diabetes prevalence of more than 16%, nearly twice that of non-Hispanic whites; they are also far more likely to die from heart disease, kidney disease, influenza or pneumonia, and diabetes than the national average. In 2021, the life expectancy of Native Americans at birth is only 65.2 years, about 5.5 years lower than the average life expectancy of other races. This figure is comparable to the overall life expectancy of the total U.S. population in 1944, highlighting the severity of their health conditions. Social factors also have a profound impact on the access to health care for Native Americans. Poverty is extremely common in Native communities, and many residents have difficulty even having basic living facilities such as electricity and running water. This not only reduces the quality of life, but also makes them unable to afford medical expenses and transportation costs, hindering their way to medical treatment. Moreover, most Native reservations are remote, with extremely inconvenient transportation and scarce medical facilities. Residents often have to travel long distances to get to medical institutions, and it is even more difficult to get treatment quickly in emergencies. Hospitals on reservations are small in scale and limited in function, and cannot provide comprehensive medical services. In addition, the differences between indigenous culture and mainstream society have led to poor communication and frequent cultural misunderstandings in medical services, which have affected their acceptance and use of medical services. Insufficient insurance coverage is also a major problem. Only 33% of American Indians have insurance, which is significantly lower than the insurance coverage rates of 80% of non-Hispanic whites and 52% of African Americans. This has put many indigenous people under tremendous financial pressure when facing medical expenses, further limiting their ability to access medical services. Although the United States has made some moves in recent years to improve indigenous health care, such as relevant Supreme Court rulings and the government's increase in the IHS budget, these efforts are far from enough to fill the huge health care gap. The health care issues of Native Americans urgently need to be comprehensive.

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

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