Native American communities hit hard by government shutdown

Federal government is critical in lives of Native Americans; shutdown harms most vulnerable

By Kevin Taylor and Jenni Monet

No roads link the tiny town of Fort Yukon, Alaska, to the rest of the United States, but that doesn't mean the federal government shutdown won't reach the nearly 600 inhabitants, mostly members of the Alaska Native population, who still fish and hunt for subsistence.

Ed Alexander is second chief of the Gwichyaa Zhee band of Gwich'in Indians who reside there, and he spent most of Tuesday online trying to determine what exactly the shutdown's impact would be. The timing is terrible for Alaska Native villages, he said, hurting students who have not yet received scholarship money they need for faraway universities and creating unemployment — the government is a core employer — just as people are preparing for an interior Alaska winter.

"It's going to be 40-below in a month,'' Alexander said. "I hope the Republicans get their act together and pass a clean CR (continuing resolution). Everybody's hoping that. It's the poorest who are suffering most. That's what's happening here.''

The federal government plays a critical role for the 1.7 million American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 566 federally recognized tribes, providing key services that include health care, schools, social programs and law enforcement protection, all supported by its long-standing treaty obligations made with Native Americans.

Some essential services will continue during the shutdown, such as law enforcement and firefighting, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And the 176 Indian Health Service hospitals and clinics will stay open.

But the shutdown means freezes have already been placed on nutrition programs, foster care payments, financial assistance for the poor and anti-elder-abuse programs. Some tribes risk losing all their income in timber operations if federal employees aren't there. Vital contracts and grants will be stalled.

"It shuts down jobs,'' said Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in western Washington state. "They can't administer the sales, they can't administer the appraisals that have to go on for timber assessment. It stops everything in its tracks.''

Allen, also an executive board member of the National Congress of American Indians, said it isn't just tribes with timber that are affected. 

"It could be coal for the Crow Tribe over in Montana, mineral or grazing rights or oil reserves,'' he said. "Those all stop. It causes a huge hardship.''


While some Americans might see the shutdown as a political fight, those in Indian country look at it through a different lens. After all, "treaties were a contract between sovereign nations, the United States and the Indian communities,'' said Allen. 

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