Tribal members debate extent of danger posed by ICE

By Nicole Montesano

Smoke Signals staff writer

Tribal members and Tribal Council members debated the extent of the danger posed to Tribal members by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a Tribal Council meeting Wednesday, Jan. 14, following a week that included an ICE agent killing a woman in Minneapolis and the non-fatal shooting of two people in Portland. None of the people shot were Native American. However, there have been reports of people from different Tribes being detained or questioned by ICE and being told their Tribal identification, which complies with the federal REAL ID Act, is not legitimate.

Tribal member Justine Flynn told council members she was unhappy that it had failed to develop a policy regarding ICE.  

“Citizens of federally recognized Tribes are being detained and questioned by federal agents about their citizenship,” she said. “Federal agents are accusing Native people of carrying fake Tribal IDs and then taking them from them. I recently watched a federal agent gun down a woman, in the face, in front of people and nothing happened,” Flynn said. “You have the privilege of sitting in a position of government that most impacts members of this community. That means two things. This is where we are most likely to be heard and this is where we expect our voices to be most reflected.”

Flynn emphasized she was unhappy that the Tribal Council has not yet put together a policy in the event of Tribal members being detained.

“How do you proceed?” she said. “What would you expect of this community? What would you ask us to do? What is the role of Tribal police? I can tell you this; I’ll be there to meet them when they arrive, and I know that I will not be alone. I will not let them take anybody, whether that requires violence or not. What if ICE tried to arrest me for intervening? … Would you expect Tribal police to allow them to take other people that are standing up and protecting people?”

Tribal Elder Jack Giffen Jr. said that he does not consider federal agents a threat.

“I guess I got a different perspective,” he said. “They’ve got a job -- ICE has got a job to do. There’s over a million people that came into this country undocumented and you just seen the two people in Portland. Some of them are pretty violent people. Here at the reservation, there ain’t even one of us that isn’t a documented citizen of the United States. We were born here. We got a roll number with the federal government. I think they got a tough job and every time we try to throw up a roadblock, they can’t do their job, and it makes it even tougher.”

In addition, Giffen said, “the bottom line is, our sovereignty is governed by the federal government. You know, if we throw a roadblock up to the government agents coming in, they could take that sovereignty away in a heartbeat. They’ve done it once already. So, you know, I’d be cautious, telling the federal government you can’t come on our property. Cause the property’s held by them.”

Several people, including Flynn, responded to Giffen’s comments. “It was once legal for federal agents to come in and take kids,” she said. “That was legal. They were doing their job. They had a job to do and they took our kids, and they put ‘em in boarding schools. It was once legal for them to show up on our Tribal lands and move us wherever they wanted to. They were just doing their job; it was legal. It doesn’t mean it was right. It doesn’t it was Ok and it doesn’t mean that we comply. We didn’t, in those scenarios. The trauma that came out of things like that, we are still experiencing.”

Giffen said he is concerned about criminal behavior. “You gotta uphold the laws, whether you like them or not,” he said. “If you don’t like ‘em, change ‘em. Get together and change ‘em. But you uphold the ones you got.”

Tribal Council members said they don’t support federal agents being able to come onto the Tribal campus. Council members Lisa Leno and Matthew Haller said they agreed that council should have acted sooner to develop a policy.

“I definitely think that’s something that needs to be a priority and people need to, like you said, people really do need to understand what that would mean in our community, what are the protocols,” Leno said, adding that she expects council to hold a work session “very, very soon.”

Haller told Flynn that “that’s a priority in my eyes. … And sure, I’ll be right beside you; you call me, and I’ll be one of the people with my boots on the ground in the front line with you.”

Later in the meeting, Haller noted that “In McMinnville, Oregon, not too long ago, a high school student on his lunch break was taken by ICE. ... McMinnville was targeted. Just last night, at their City Council meeting on January 13, there was just a distraught meeting, and a line of high school kids that got up and told testimonies of being fearful to leave campus to go to lunch. That requires some type of protection in my eyes. My daughter leaves the Willamina campus every single day to go to lunch. What if she was just taken or detained? I’m sorry, but I don’t care what your federal jurisdiction is, I’m not OK with that."

Interim General Manager Bryan Langley said he plans to pull in department heads to help craft a policy and would call on Flynn, among others, for her input.

Tribal Council Chief of Staff Stacia Hernandez said the Tribe “can also verify Tribal enrollment outside office hours, also, if there’s a need or if we hear of a situation, put ourselves in a position where we can respond quickly and advocate to get anyone potentially, out of custody.”

She added that “I will say that our delegation has been super responsive as well, so we continue to work with them very closely.”

Tribal Council Vice Chair Chris Mercier noted that “ICE has been around for a while,” but said he finds recent behavior by agents “pretty appalling, and it just seems to me that they’re terrorizing certain communities, and I don’t like what I’m seeing. Having said that, I don’t want us to be in a position to where a situation can escalate and we see violence like what we saw in Minneapolis last week. I want to be able to protect our people, but I don’t want to put us in a situation where things can blow up and more people get hurt or even worse.”

Others who spoke on the issue included Tribal member Katherine Warren, Tribal Elder Darlene Aaron, Tribal Elder Reyn Leno and Tribal Elder Linda Olson.

Tribal Elder Denise Harvey told the council that “I did get several calls from the Oklahoma Tribes, this morning, that ICE was raiding their campuses. So, they were on high alert with that situation and that was this morning. And Justine was correct, there have been many, many Tribes that have put out statements for their members. I have shared those, I’m sure many people have seen them. I shared them because I hadn’t seen anything from our Tribe, and I at least wanted to give people some thought process on how people are handling that situation.”

On Thursday, Jan. 15, United Indian Nations of Oklahoma issued an advisory to Tribal citizens across Oklahoma to “remain vigilant and to carry Tribal identification, along with any state or federally issued identification they may possess.” It noted that four enrolled members of the Oglalla Sioux and an Ojibwe/Red Lake Nation descendent had been detained in Minnesota and a member of Arizona’s Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community had been detained in Iowa.

The press release also contained guidance issued by the Native American Rights Fund, for both minor and adult Tribal citizens, about how to respond if approached by immigration agents.

It included the following advice:

• You have the right to remain silent
• Do not lie or physically resist
• Do not open the door if at home unless the agent has a signed judicial warrant.

More information and advice from NARF is available at: narf.org/ice-resources-2026/.