The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) stands in unwavering solidarity with Tribal Nations across Indian Country as national monuments, including indispensable culturally and spiritually significant sites, face renewed threats of revocation and degradation. Tribal Nations over centuries have been forced to defend their sacred homelands from desecration, inappropriately placed resource extraction, vandalism and looting, and management practices that threaten Tribal history and places that are embedded in Native cultures. The recent weakening of the infrastructure of the public lands management agencies, funding freezes that have stalled conservation efforts across public lands, and menacing references to privatization impact the well-being of our communities and threaten the inherent rights of Tribal Nations to steward and protect their ancestral lands, cultural resources, and sacred sites for future generations.

“National monuments are an essential tool for preserving the living homelands for Tribal Nations — not just federally designated and protected locations,” said NCAI President Mark Macarro. “They preserve vibrant landscapes with interconnected cultural, natural, and spiritual significance — not just museums exhibiting what was. These places carry the songs, the stories, the ancestors, and the spirit of our people. Any move to erase those protections is a direct affront to the sovereignty, heritage, and spiritual lifeways of the Tribal Nations who fought for their designation.”

National Monuments like Chuckwalla, Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Sàttitla Highlands, and others were designated in close federal consultation with Tribal Nations, honoring generations of stewardship and resistance. Culture and land are directly and sacredly connected for Tribal Nations across the United States. They are home to ceremonial spaces, shrines and other sites of worship, medicinal plants and resources, ancestral villages, petroglyphs, and ancient burial grounds — all of which remain vital to the cultural resilience of Native peoples.

“Attempting to strip protections from these monuments sends a dangerous signal that Indigenous history and presence can be erased at the stroke of a pen,” said NCAI Executive Director Larry Wright, Jr. “These lands are sacred trust spaces, and protecting them is not just a matter of policy; it’s a matter of spiritual and cultural survival.”

NCAI brings this position forward not as an outside observer, but as the organized voice of Tribal Nations themselves. Every statement we make is grounded in resolutions that are debated, refined, and adopted by Tribal delegates during national gatherings. These resolutions emerge from sovereign governments, are brought to the floor by Tribal leaders, and are voted on by representatives chosen by their Nations. This is how the defense of Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and other sacred sites entered the national record, not through backroom negotiations but through open deliberation guided by cultural and historic responsibility. The authority we carry reflects the governance of hundreds of Tribal Nations standing together to protect what is living and sacred. The restoration of Bears Ears and the return of the name Denali were not granted; they were hard-won outcomes of sustained Tribal advocacy, made possible through this collective structure.

The 2015 restoration of the original Koyukon Athabaskan name of our nation’s high mountain, Denali, which means “The High One,” illustrates the importance of honoring Indigenous place names and cultural ties to the land and these places. Denali has life and agency; it is not just a name. Despite deeply held cultural beliefs and broad support, it faced political pushback, revealing how even symbolic recognition of tribal heritage can be ignored and contested. As sacred sites and traditional cultural properties face new threats, we must reaffirm that protecting these lands also means respecting the names, stories, and sovereignty they carry.

NCAI calls on the Administration and Congress to uphold the sovereignty of Tribal Nations by protecting these sacred lands. The intent of the Antiquities Act must be honored, not undermined. These protections were not handed down; they were secured through years of intertribal advocacy and federal-tribal consultation. Rolling them back is not just a policy reversal. It is a denial of Tribal presence, knowledge, and responsibility. It is a threat to the cultural and spiritual survival of our Peoples.

On April 7, 2025, NCAI, Tribal Nations, and the Mojave Elder Committee sent President Trump and Department of the Interior Secretary Burgum a letter regarding Chuckwalla National Monument's status as a national monument and related protections.

NCAI Stands with Tribal Nations on Threats to National Monuments and Sacred Tribal Lands

The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board and a Catholic charter school cite federal Indian Boarding schools as an example of federal funding of religious education without acknowledging that the schools in question were a form of cultural genocide.

Washington D.C. — On Monday, April 7, the National Congress of American Indians, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, and the Association on American Indian Affairs filed an amicus brief in 

Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond 

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond

, both on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board and the Catholic school argue that the federal government has a longstanding tradition of funding religious education—pointing to federal Indian boarding schools and treaties with Tribal Nations—as evidence that such funding does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s principle of separation of church and state.

The amicus brief seeks to clarify that federal Indian boarding schools were part of the federal government’s Indian “civilization” policy that sought to forcibly assimilate Indian children by converting them to Christianity. The brief also explains the difference between Tribal Nations directing the United States to spend Tribal money on Indian education and federal spending of public money for the religious education of Indians. The Tribal organizations explain that neither example should be mischaracterized or misused to justify federal funding for religious education today.

"The traumatic impact caused by federal Indian boarding schools has been condemned globally. As educators should know, the Indian boarding schools were a shameful genocidal system aimed to ‘Kill the Indian, save the man’ and should not be used as a legal argument on who is entitled to tax payer money allocated for public education," said Shannon O’Loughlin, citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Chief Executive and Attorney for the Association on American Indian Affairs. The Association has worked since 1922 to protect Native Nations’ sovereignty and address the lasting impacts of federal Indian boarding schools on Native Peoples. “The so-called tradition referenced in the educators’ legal arguments involved separating children from their families without parental consent, isolating them in often torturous conditions, deliberately erasing their identities, their languages, and forcibly converting them to Christianity, as well as utilizing Native children for labor.”

Native communities survived the genocidal federal Indian boarding school system and continue to heal from the intergenerational trauma the system caused.

"Native people are still healing from the impacts of the federal boarding school system—a system deliberately created to disrupt Native culture and dismantle Native families. The children who survived these institutions were left to restore identities that had been systematically stripped away and to rebuild the sacred bonds with their families, communities, cultures, and spiritual practices that were intentionally severed,” said National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Chief Executive Officer Deborah Parker. “The healing continues today and must be supported—especially by educators who should know better. A policy rooted in cultural genocide is not one to aspire to or uphold as an example.”

The amicus brief also emphasizes critical distinctions in the School Board’s and Catholic school’s argument’s that erroneously equate Tribal Nations directing the use of 

 money for religious education and the federal government expending 

 money for the religious education of Indigenous peoples. The former is an exercise of Tribal sovereignty not constrained by the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The latter was part of a federal policy that included forcing Indian children to convert to Christianity and flew in the face of the Establishment Clause.

“Some Tribal Nations receive education funding from the United States based on treaties and other agreements with the United States. What those Tribes decide to do with their funds is at their discretion and not an equivalent to federal expenditures of public monies which must follow the rules established by the United States government and Constitution,” said NCAI Executive Director Larry Wright Jr.

“There are many legal concerns with the School Board and Church’s arguments, but our simple point is that federal funding to convert Indians to Christianity and federal suppression of Native religions should not be mischaracterized or misused by the Court in this case or otherwise,” said NARF Executive Director John Echohawk.

Amy M. Echo-Hawk, Native American Rights Fund:

CC Hovie, Association on American Indian Affairs:

Sherrie Catanach, National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition:

Tribal Organizations Shine Light on the History of Federal Indian Boarding Schools and Tribal Sovereignty in Education

NCAI resolutions are one of the policy mechanisms used to express the organizational positions on tribal, federal, state, and/or local legislation, litigation, and policy matters that affect tribal governments or communities. All of NCAI’s advocacy work is guided by the 

. Only Individual Indian members in good standing with NCAI may submit a resolution for consideration.

Policy resolutions are now being accepted for the 2025 Mid Year Convention. To prepare your submission, please download the Resolutions template 

. You may submit resolutions through our online portal 

The deadline to submit resolutions is Monday, May 12, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. EST. Please note that all resolutions for Mid Year must be emergency in nature and national in scope. Please read the instructions in the form for more detailed information.

Please note that this portal is not for Tribal Delegate Resolutions, which should be emailed to 

Policy Resolutions: Now Accepting Submissions for NCAI’s Mid Year Convention & Marketplace

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), in partnership with the 

National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers

 (CEQ) in response to its rescission of the baseline regulations governing federal agencies’ environmental review of major federal actions spanning infrastructure projects to grants of permits and licenses.

In response to President Donald Trump’s executive order, 

 (IFR), which goes into effect April 11, 2025, erases the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing regulations altogether, replacing it with 7-pages of guidance while more than 80 federal agencies replace their agency-specific regulations. The NEPA regulations, originally promulgated in 1978, remained virtually unchanged until the first Trump Administration’s sweeping revisions in 2020. These were followed by the Biden Administration’s changes in 2022 and 2024. The most recent version incorporates numerous provisions directly relevant to Tribal Nations, such as an exemption of some Tribally approved projects, consideration of effects on Tribal cultural resources, an explicit role for traditional Indigenous Knowledge, and taking government-to-government consultation into account when calculating the timeframe for environmental review. Some of these provisions were originally proposed by NCAI. 

You can read more about NEPA Phase 2 here.

, yet CEQ failed to engage in the required government-to-government consultation — a breach of the federal trust responsibility. The comment letter outlines multiple substantive concerns and procedural defects and calls on CEQ to reverse course, stating: “Refusal to engage in consultation disregards the progress of the federal-Tribal trust relationship over the past 57-year history of the Self-Determination and Self-Governance era of federal Indian law and policy.”

NCAI’s key recommendations for CEQ include:

Delaying the IFR’s effective date to engage in robust government-to-government consultation with Tribal Nations about the rule’s significant tribal implications;

Advising agencies that they are required to engage in government-to-government consultation with Tribal Nations for proposed federal actions affecting Tribal Nations;

The creation of a centralized digital consultation portal, acknowledging how the current fragmented system burdens Tribal Nations;

Recognition of Indigenous Knowledge’s value in conducting environmental review;

Maintaining the requirement that agencies review potential cumulative and indirect impacts in their Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements; and

Collaborate with Congress to make much-needed amendments to NEPA that explicitly affirm the trust responsibility and clarify CEQ’s rulemaking authority.

NCAI reaffirms its commitment to defending tribal sovereignty and environmental justice and calls upon CEQ and the Administration to fully engage with Tribal Nations per federal law, established policy, and principles of mutual respect.

NCAI Issues Formal Comments to CEQ Regarding NEPA Regulation Rollbacks and Federal Government’s Trust Responsibility

 — The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) condemns the recent executive order to begin dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. NCAI calls the move reckless, politically motivated, and a direct threat to Native students, tribal sovereignty, and the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations.

“Let us be clear: This is not just an administrative change – it’s an attack on the fundamental right of Native students to a quality education that reflects their identity, history, and sovereignty,” said NCAI President Mark Macarro. “The trust and treaty responsibilities of the United States are not optional. Dismantling the Department of Education is a betrayal to Native Nations and future generations.”

Over 90% of Native youth attend public schools, many of which rely on federal resources like Title VI and Johnson-O'Malley funding to support Native language preservation, cultural education, and academic success. Eliminating the federal agency responsible for delivering and safeguarding those resources would further marginalize Native students and destabilize tribal education systems.

“This move sends a dangerous message that Native students, their cultures, and their futures are expendable,” said NCAI Executive Director Larry Wright, Jr. “We will not sit silently while centuries of progress in Native education are dismantled for political convenience. We demand the U.S. government honor its trust responsibilities and protect the rights of Native students.”

NCAI urges Congress to immediately reject any attempt to eliminate or weaken federal education support and act swiftly to defend Tribal Nations’ rights to equitable, culturally grounded education.

NCAI Condemns Executive Order to Dismantle the U.S. Department of Education

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is deeply concerned by recent reports indicating the removal of content honoring the Navajo Code Talkers from several U.S. military websites. These brave individuals played an indispensable role during World War II, using their native language to develop an unbreakable code that was pivotal in securing victory in the Pacific Theater. Their contributions exemplify unparalleled patriotism and valor.

The Navajo Code Talkers’ legacy is not just a story of Native American resilience but a defining chapter in American history. Their contributions to the war effort saved countless lives, and any effort to erase or diminish their role is deeply troubling. We call on the Department of Defense to restore these materials immediately and ensure that the stories of Native service members remain accessible for future generations.

Reports have highlighted that at least ten articles referencing the Code Talkers have been removed from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense websites, with URLs now marked "DEI." This suggests a correlation with President Trump's executive order terminating federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

NCAI acknowledges the Department of Defense's commitment to policy compliance but emphasizes that honoring the legacy of the Navajo Code Talkers transcends DEI considerations. Their heroism is a testament to the rich cultural heritage and profound sacrifices of Native peoples in service to our nation.​

Native peoples have a long history of distinguished military service, consistently enlisting at higher rates than any other group in the United States. This overrepresentation is a testament to the deep dedication, warrior traditions, and sense of duty that have been central to Tribal Nations for generations. Among the most remarkable contributions are those of the Code Talkers, beginning with the Choctaw soldiers in World War I and continuing through World War II, when members of at least 14 Tribal Nations, including the Comanche, Meskwaki, Hopi, and Seminole, developed unbreakable codes that saved countless lives. In keeping with their values, many of these warriors never sought personal recognition, yet their legacy remains a profound source of pride. The removal of these historical records disrespects not only the Navajo Code Talkers but all Native service members who have answered the call to protect this nation.

"The Navajo Code Talkers’ legacy is not just a story of Native American resilience but a defining chapter in American history,” said NCAI Executive Director Larry Wright, Jr. “Their contributions to the war effort saved countless lives, and any effort to erase or diminish their role is deeply troubling. We call on the Department of Defense to restore these materials immediately and ensure that the stories of Native service members remain accessible for future generations.”

Tribal Nations have a unique political and legal relationship with the United States, grounded in inherent sovereignty and recognized in the U.S. Constitution, treaties, and numerous federal laws and policies. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld this distinct legal and political status. As the federal government implements new policies, including those affecting DEI initiatives, it must not allow trust and treaty obligations to become collateral damage.

We call on the Trump Administration to prioritize the recognition of Native service members and their history, ensuring political changes do not diminish their contributions. We remain steadfast in advocating for Native rights and stand ready to collaborate with federal partners to uphold these commitments.

NCAI Statement on the Removal of Navajo Code Talkers Content from Military Websites

Washington, D.C. — The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) mourns the passing of Arizona Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva, a lifelong champion and fearless advocate for Tribal Nations. His steadfast commitment to upholding tribal sovereignty, protecting sacred lands, and improving the well-being of tribal communities will be remembered for generations to come.

Throughout his more than two decades in Congress, Congressman Grijalva was a vocal defender of Native voices in federal policy. He authored and advanced landmark legislative action, seeking to ensure meaningful tribal consultation on federal actions impacting tribal communities through the Requirements, Expectations, and Standard Procedures in Effective Consultation with Tribes (RESPECT) Act, and giving Urban Indian Organizations a direct line to federal healthcare agencies through the Urban Indian Health Confer Act. His leadership also extended to work on the Advancing Tribal Parity on Public Land Act and the Tribal Cultural Areas Protection Act, which aimed to elevate tribal stewardship of public lands and safeguard sacred sites, and the Native Child Protection Act, addressing critical protections for Native children and families. Most recently, Congressman Grijalva introduced H.R. 8937 to support tribal water rights settlements and ensure safe, clean water for Tribal Nations and communities— an issue he knew was fundamental to tribal sovereignty and survival.

Beyond his legislative work, Congressman Grijalva was a fierce defender of sacred lands such as Oak Flat, Bears Ears, and Chaco Canyon, always standing with Tribal Nations to protect places of deep cultural and spiritual importance. His unwavering commitment to environmental justice and climate action was rooted in respect for Indigenous leadership and knowledge.

To Indian Country, Congressman Grijalva was a true ally whose work has left an indelible mark. To those closest to him, he was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend. As NCAI reflects on his legacy, we extend our deepest condolences to Congressman Grijalva’s family, loved ones, friends, and staff. May our Creator guide him on a smooth journey to the next world. These are our prayers. His dedication to building strong relationships between the federal government and Tribal Nations will continue to serve as a foundation for the work ahead.

NCAI Mourns the Passing of Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva — A Tireless Champion for Indian Country

 | The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) proudly announces Mary Parker as our new Director of Communications. With over a decade of experience in public affairs, strategic messaging, stakeholder engagement, and tribal consultations, Ms. Parker brings a wealth of knowledge and a proven track record that will strengthen NCAI’s commitment to serving as the unified voice for Indian Country.

Ms. Parker joins NCAI following over six years at the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), where she served as Public Affairs Manager and official spokesperson. In this role, she led public affairs initiatives, oversaw media relations, and managed the agency’s brand identity. Her leadership extended to supervising cross-functional teams and leading instructional design efforts to ensure clear and effective communications with Tribal Nations and the broader public.

Ms. Parker is a recipient of multiple leadership awards recognizing her dedication and impact, including being named to the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development’s prestigious "40 Under 40" list in 2020. Ms. Parker has an impressive academic background as well. She holds a Master’s degree in Administrative Leadership from the University of Oklahoma and is a doctoral candidate in Instructional Systems Design and Technology at Sam Houston State University. Her research focuses on digital equity and Native American education, reflecting her commitment to advancing educational opportunities and access for Native communities.

"Mary’s experience and deep understanding of tribal affairs, combined with her energetic and innovative approach to communications, make her a valuable new addition to our leadership team," said NCAI Executive Director Larry Wright Jr. "We are excited to welcome her to the NCAI team and look forward to her insightful leadership in communications as we all continue our work to protect tribal sovereignty and uplift Indian Country."

In her new role, Ms. Parker will lead NCAI’s Communications Department, shaping the organization’s strategic messaging, strengthening media engagement, and ensuring NCAI continues to provide timely and impactful information to Tribal Nations, policymakers, and the public. Ms. Parker is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

Please join us in welcoming Mary Parker to the NCAI team!

NCAI Welcomes Mary Parker as Director of Communications

, we explore the Land Back movement, an effort led by American Indian and Alaska Native people to restore traditional homelands to Tribal Nations. The goal of this movement is not only to reclaim property stolen from Native communities, but to restore stewardship and sovereignty over ancestral lands. While we share recent successes and highlights, we also examine the deep historical roots and ongoing struggles of this movement.

Raphael Wahwassuck, Tribal Council Member and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, joins us to discuss the recent return of 1,500 acres of land, remedying two centuries of injustice and dispossession for his tribe. He shares the long history of this issue for his tribe and how other Tribal Nations can learn from the Prairie Band Potawatomi’s advocacy and experience on this issue.

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