theintercept--2020-08-01--Trump’s Pick to Manage Public Lands Has Four-Decade History of “Overt Racism” Toward Native People

In the five books authored by President Donald Trump ’ s nominee to lead the Interior Department ’ s Bureau of Land Management , William Perry Pendley rails against “ environmental extremists , ” endangered species protections , People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , and Al Gore — all of whom , in his view , would illicitly limit private development on the lands of the West .
He had another target too : policies supporting Native nations ’ treaty rights .
Pendley has been the acting leader of the BLM , which is responsible for managing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than a year .
With confirmation hearings expected in the coming weeks , his long history of attacking Indigenous people is getting new scrutiny .
For years , Pendley was head of the Mountain States Legal Foundation , a right-wing organization that has fought multiple high-profile cases favoring private property rights in states west of the Mississippi , including in Native territories .
In court and in his voluminous writings , Pendley attempted to undo protections for sites considered sacred to tribes ; fought Justice Department efforts to support Native voters ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key legal precedents that uphold treaty rights ; and made statements about Native identity and religion that Indigenous scholars and attorneys call deeply offensive .
In his 2006 book “ Warriors for the West , ” for example , Pendley suggested that Native people may soon cease to exist .
“ The day may soon come when Congress and the Supreme Court will be asked to take a serious and very hard look at whether there remains a need for the federal government ’ s policy of paternalistic protection , ” Pendley wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s legal obligation to fulfill treaty commitments , known as its “ trust responsibility.
” The statement continued , chillingly , “ The day may come sooner than many expect given that , with ever-declining blood quantum per tribal member , recognized tribes may soon be little more than associations of financial convenience.
” Pendley ’ s views on Indigenous people have engendered fierce opposition to his nomination to lead BLM — with his positions on “ blood quantum ” being only the latest to come under scrutiny .
Jill Doerfler , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nation and professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth , has written extensively about “ blood quantum , ” a term meant to describe the proportion of “ Indian blood ” a person carries , used by some tribes as a prerequisite for citizenship .
Doerfler ’ s scholarship shows that blood quantum was imposed by European Americans attempting to diminish the number of tribal citizens able to access land .
“ This seems like a long , old argument going back to the reason the federal government ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way to identify American Indians .
That has always been done as a way to access resources , ” she said .
She added that the blood quantum has always been used “ to diminish the number of people that have that legal and political status as American Indians.
” Matthew Fletcher , director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University and member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians , put it bluntly .
“ That ’ s just a crazy , crazy racist perception @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tribes are , ” he said .
“ Somebody who talks like that about people should not have a place in any public position in government .
That is just overt racism.
” Pendley , who has lately come under fire for his views on racial justice , worked for the Interior Department in the 1980s as well , and his record there provides further evidence that he could prioritize private development over treaty rights .
As acting assistant secretary for energy and minerals under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry royalty payments owed to Indigenous people , according to documents shared with The Intercept by the Western Values Project , a public lands and accountability nonprofit .
Neither Pendley nor the Interior Department answered a detailed list of queries from The Intercept .
“ Based on the misleading and accusatory questions sent by the Intercept , it is apparent your intention is to create the appearance of disagreement where none exists , and to smear the reputation of a public servant and former Marine who is one of the most highly qualified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ position of BLM Director , ” said Conner Swanson , an Interior Department spokesperson , in an email .
“ The Department looks forward to Mr. Pendley ’ s swift confirmation.
” Of course , Pendley ’ s critics are urging Senators to reject the attorney .
“ William Pendley ’ s record of actively working against the interests of Native Americans and tribal governments during the Reagan administration and while heading up the right-wing lawsuit factory Mountain States Legal Foundation should be as disqualifying as his racist and bigoted views , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Western Values Project .
Instead , given what O ’ Neill called the “ culture of corruption ” promoted by Trump and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt , “ They are actually trying to promote him.
” In “ Warriors for the West , ” Pendley offers his version of the history of the European invasion of Indigenous lands .
“ In the nation ’ s early days , the United States sought to balance its ‘ Manifest Destiny ’ — to settle , colonize , and utilize the resources of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ independent and diverse indigenous peoples who inhabited that land and used its resources and who wanted to keep both , ” Pendley wrote .
“ The history of the federal government ’ s treatment of American Indians has not involved overt , intentional racial hatred , but instead an attempt to achieve a Jeffersonian ideal of a United States of America in which all adopted the English language , Christian religion , and Anglo/American culture and lived side by side.
” Pendley was omitting some details .
“ In the mid-1800s to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and forced into mandatory military and religious run boarding schools — against their parents ’ will , ” said Angelique EagleWoman , co-director of the Indian Law Program at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law and a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton ( Dakota ) Oyate .
“ They were sexually , emotionally , and physically abused .
If that isn ’ t overt , intentional racism , I ’ m not sure what is .
We have never fully received reparations or acknowledgement of that history.
” It ’ s not the only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see left out .
While Native tribes certainly suffered racist abuses , their relationships with the U.S. were actually established through and are still governed by nation-to-nation treaties , which carry constitutional weight as the “ supreme law of the land.
” The vast body of what is known as Indian law exists to support the United States ’ political – not racial — obligations to tribes , which came in return for the relinquishment of vast lands and resources .
In his book , Pendley acknowledges this history by citing the 1974 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mancari , which affirms the U.S. ’ s obligations to Native people under the Constitution .
But in legal documents , his monthly column , and book passages , Pendley has repeatedly and inaccurately argued that the decision supports unconstitutional racial preferences .
Pendley ’ s push to overturn Mancari ties into his past efforts to disrupt racial justice programs .
In the 1990s , Pendley was the attorney for a highway guardrail construction company that objected to a Department of Transportation program favoring “ socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.
” The case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which in 1995 issued a ruling that severely curtailed affirmative action programs by imposing onerous burdens on racial preferences .
In the wake of the decision , Pendley — again ignoring the weight of the treaties — repeatedly argued that “ Mancari is likely unconstitutional.
” “ This is fringe theory , ” said EagleWoman .
“ Nothing that he ’ s saying has gained any traction in the law.
” That hasn ’ t stopped right-wing legal groups from pushing the argument in court , including efforts by Pendley himself .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the repercussions would be enormous .
“ If Mancari were overturned , it would be an enormous legal and political disaster , ” said Robert Coulter , executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation .
“ Almost nothing would be the same .
Around 200 years of congressional legislation would suddenly be unconstitutional and invalid.
” “ Some of the right-wing legal theories are like that , ” Coulter added .
“ The aim is to create a disaster so that the legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to exist , and Indian tribes would have virtually no rights.
” Mancari isn ’ t the only target of Pendley ’ s attacks on Native rights .
As a lawyer with Mountain States Legal Foundation and in his writing , he has argued against tribes and Native people in cases related to voting rights , tribal courts ’ jurisdiction , tribes ’ tax-exempt status , and the right of Indigenous people to speak their languages in the workplace .
However , Pendley has perhaps most frequently argued to deny protections for sites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those located on and near public lands .
Pendley ’ s approach is especially significant given that the Bureau of Land Management oversees 245 million acres of public lands — 12 percent of the United States — many of which border tribal land .
Any pollution emitted by development projects could impact tribal citizens ’ health or the health of the wild flora and fauna on which they rely .
Located on the land itself are numerous cultural resources , including sacred sites , that are important to Indigenous people ’ s ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the National Park Service decided that Devils Tower , a butte in Wyoming , would be voluntarily off-limits to climbers every June , in order to respect area tribes ’ religious practices .
Pendley was incensed and fought the policy In February 1995 , the National Park Service decided that Devils Tower , a butte in Wyoming , would be voluntarily off-limits to climbers every June , in order to respect area tribes ’ religious practices .
Pendley was incensed and fought the policy in court .
Despite the fact that several tribes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he claimed in a column that “ Devils Tower was never a sacred site for American Indians !
” As evidence , he noted that there were no “ sightings ” of American Indians at Devils Tower in the mid-to-late 1800s and pointed to a document from 1934 that claimed there was no “ physical evidence ” that the structure was important to people .
More recently , he represented a county defending the Trump administration ’ s reduction in size of the Bears Ears National Monument , which is considered sacred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the Interior Department on behalf of the oil and gas company Solenex , which sought to drill in the pristine Badger-Two Medicine area of Montana , considered sacred to the Blackfeet people .
( Pendley recused himself from work related to Bears Ears and involvement in the Solenex case after he came on as acting BLM head .
A federal court upheld the cancellation of the energy company ’ s lease in June . )
As a lawyer , Pendley also battled a decision by the Arizona Department of Transportation to refuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a company that mined the material from Woodruff Butte , considered sacred to the Hopi , Zuni , and Navajo people .
And he opposed the federal government ’ s decision to cancel a timber sale near Medicine Mountain and the Medicine Wheel , a national monument and a sacred site to Indigenous people , located in the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming .
Pendley represented a nearby sawmill that he claimed was prevented from purchasing the unharvested wood .
In his writings , Pendley frequently compared protections for sacred sites to legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , like crosses removed from public property and prayers at public school .
He claimed in “ Warriors for the West ” that “ the law of the land regarding government activity ‘ respecting an establishment of religion ’ is Judeo-Christian , ‘ no , ’ and pantheism , ‘ yes.
’ ” Fletcher , the Indigenous law expert from Michigan State University , dismissed the idea that the federal government too frequently protects sacred sites .
“ I would say that 95 percent of sacred sites cases that Indians or tribes bring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The Devils Tower thing is particularly ridiculous .
There is a voluntary climbing ban for one month in the summertime .
There is no protection for Indian people on Devils Tower or really anywhere else.
” Proportionally , efforts to maintain Christian symbols in public spaces are more successful than cases to protect sacred sites “ by an incredible margin , ” he added .
At a hearing regarding the BLM ’ s move to Colorado last September , Rep. Deb Haaland , D-N.M. , asked Pendley about one of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was not speaking as a member of the BLM .
I was speaking as a private attorney representing private clients , ” Pendley replied .
“ I ’ m proud to speak on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management now , and I ’ m particularly pleased with the opportunities to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribes to establish tribal energy resource agreements to permit tribes to develop their energy resources.
” “ I have a new client , ” he claimed .
“ My client ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Pendley could be seen as a natural ally to tribes and Native people that have sought to increase resource extraction on their lands .
Yet he has even sided with energy companies against those very tribes interested in extractive development .
Large numbers of Native people rely on royalties paid by the oil and gas industry for extraction on their land .
In many places , mining takes place on Native land that is held in trust by the federal government .
Essentially , because of a long history of dispossession , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or an American Indian person , but the federal government controls the leasing to ranchers , miners , or oil and gas companies .
Royalties are then distributed by the federal government back to the tribal members who own the land .
Many tribes and individuals plan their budgets with the royalties in mind and , for those living on razor-thin margins in economically depressed areas , they are an essential lifeline .
For decades leading up to the 1980s , oil and gas producers operating 21,000 leases located on land held in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their royalties within a month of production .
But in 1983 , while Pendley was serving as assistant secretary for energy and minerals in Reagan ’ s Interior Department , his agency changed the policy , allowing the companies two months instead of one .
Several people objected , mostly Comanche tribal members from the Anadarko area of Oklahoma , submitting a petition to the Bureau of Indian Affairs describing the hardship they would face if the change moved forward .
Royalty payments had already been delayed while the Minerals Management Service , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accounting system .
“ We have suffered from non-payment of royalties for months .
Many of us have lost our cars and other property while the government failed for months and months to collect or disburse millions of dollars in royalties belonging to us , ” the petitioners wrote .
“ Now just as we are beginning to get some of these back royalties and pay our bills and living costs , the government proposes to cut off our royalties again.
” “ If you permit these new regulations our royalties will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” they continued .
“ How will we pay for our food and housing and fuel ?
Do you think , Mr. Secretary , that our creditors are as lenient with us as you propose to be with the oil companies ?
No !
Our mortgages and car payments are due every month .
We must pay for our groceries when we buy them — not sixty to ninety days later.
” The move was even opposed by other officials in Reagan ’ s Interior Department .
“ It will be very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Indian people , ” Ken Smith , a member of the Wasco Tribe of Oregon who was then serving as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs , wrote in a 1983 memo to Pendley .
“ To suspend royalties for another month , probably in mid-winter , when change of regulations takes place , would work a tremendous hardship and create create a great deal of criticism.
” Pendley declined to comment on whether he heeded the tribal members concerns .
Current regulations indicate that royalty payments are due one month after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pendley ’ s failure to properly consult with tribes during the Reagan era are already visible during his tenure as BLM ’ s acting director .
The area surrounding the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico , for example , is considered sacred to many Indigenous people .
As the region became a hotbed for Covid-19 cases in the U.S. , Pendley ’ s BLM was finalizing a resource management plan for the area .
Rather than rescheduling public meetings regarding the plans , the bureau transferred them online , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impacted were scrambling to manage the health emergency wreaking havoc on the community .
“ Secretary Bernhardt and Acting Director Pendley are using this crisis to hand our public lands over to the oil and gas industry , and are silencing communities in the process , ” Rep. Raúl Grijalva , D-Ariz. , said at the time in a statement .
“ Native Americans are contracting and dying from coronavirus at an alarming rate , and the Trump administration should be working to make sure they have the resources they need to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speed.
” “ Many folks near the Chaco region live in areas without internet access , ” Haaland added .
“ By moving forward , the Department is failing to fulfill its trust and treaty obligations to Native Americans , and it is failing to protect a national treasure.
” Ultimately a public comment period was extended , but similar scenarios have played out throughout Native communities around the U.S. “ The BLM can and does have a big impact on tribes and tribal resources , ” said Coulter .
“ It would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charge .
”

In the five books authored by President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley rails against “environmental extremists,” endangered species protections, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Al Gore — all of whom, in his view, would illicitly limit private development on the lands of the West. He had another target too: policies supporting Native nations’ treaty rights.
Pendley has been the acting leader of the BLM, which is responsible for managing the nation’s public lands, for more than a year. With confirmation hearings expected in the coming weeks, his long history of attacking Indigenous people is getting new scrutiny.
For years, Pendley was head of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a right-wing organization that has fought multiple high-profile cases favoring private property rights in states west of the Mississippi, including in Native territories. In court and in his voluminous writings, Pendley attempted to undo protections for sites considered sacred to tribes; fought Justice Department efforts to support Native voters’ rights; argued in favor of toppling key legal precedents that uphold treaty rights; and made statements about Native identity and religion that Indigenous scholars and attorneys call deeply offensive.
In his 2006 book “Warriors for the West,” for example, Pendley suggested that Native people may soon cease to exist. “The day may soon come when Congress and the Supreme Court will be asked to take a serious and very hard look at whether there remains a need for the federal government’s policy of paternalistic protection,” Pendley wrote, apparently referring to the U.S. government’s legal obligation to fulfill treaty commitments, known as its “trust responsibility.” The statement continued, chillingly, “The day may come sooner than many expect given that, with ever-declining blood quantum per tribal member, recognized tribes may soon be little more than associations of financial convenience.”
Pendley’s views on Indigenous people have engendered fierce opposition to his nomination to lead BLM — with his positions on “blood quantum” being only the latest to come under scrutiny.
Jill Doerfler, a first-degree descendant of the White Earth Nation and professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth, has written extensively about “blood quantum,” a term meant to describe the proportion of “Indian blood” a person carries, used by some tribes as a prerequisite for citizenship. Doerfler’s scholarship shows that blood quantum was imposed by European Americans attempting to diminish the number of tribal citizens able to access land. “This seems like a long, old argument going back to the reason the federal government ever tried to push blood quantum as a way to identify American Indians. That has always been done as a way to access resources,” she said. She added that the blood quantum has always been used “to diminish the number of people that have that legal and political status as American Indians.”
“Somebody who talks like that about people should not have a place in any public position in government. That is just overt racism.”
Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University and member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, put it bluntly. “That’s just a crazy, crazy racist perception of what Indian people are and what tribes are,” he said. “Somebody who talks like that about people should not have a place in any public position in government. That is just overt racism.”
Pendley, who has lately come under fire for his views on racial justice, worked for the Interior Department in the 1980s as well, and his record there provides further evidence that he could prioritize private development over treaty rights. As acting assistant secretary for energy and minerals under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, Pendley sought to delay oil and gas industry royalty payments owed to Indigenous people, according to documents shared with The Intercept by the Western Values Project, a public lands and accountability nonprofit.
Neither Pendley nor the Interior Department answered a detailed list of queries from The Intercept. “Based on the misleading and accusatory questions sent by the Intercept, it is apparent your intention is to create the appearance of disagreement where none exists, and to smear the reputation of a public servant and former Marine who is one of the most highly qualified individuals ever to be considered for the position of BLM Director,” said Conner Swanson, an Interior Department spokesperson, in an email. “The Department looks forward to Mr. Pendley’s swift confirmation.”
Of course, Pendley’s critics are urging Senators to reject the attorney. “William Pendley’s record of actively working against the interests of Native Americans and tribal governments during the Reagan administration and while heading up the right-wing lawsuit factory Mountain States Legal Foundation should be as disqualifying as his racist and bigoted views,” said Jayson O’Neill, director of the Western Values Project. Instead, given what O’Neill called the “culture of corruption” promoted by Trump and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, “They are actually trying to promote him.”
Undoing Treaty Rights
In “Warriors for the West,” Pendley offers his version of the history of the European invasion of Indigenous lands. “In the nation’s early days, the United States sought to balance its ‘Manifest Destiny’ — to settle, colonize, and utilize the resources of the land — with the desires of the independent and diverse indigenous peoples who inhabited that land and used its resources and who wanted to keep both,” Pendley wrote. “The history of the federal government’s treatment of American Indians has not involved overt, intentional racial hatred, but instead an attempt to achieve a Jeffersonian ideal of a United States of America in which all adopted the English language, Christian religion, and Anglo/American culture and lived side by side.”
Pendley was omitting some details. “In the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, our children were kidnapped and forced into mandatory military and religious run boarding schools — against their parents’ will,” said Angelique EagleWoman, co-director of the Indian Law Program at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law and a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton (Dakota) Oyate. “They were sexually, emotionally, and physically abused. If that isn’t overt, intentional racism, I’m not sure what is. We have never fully received reparations or acknowledgement of that history.”
It’s not the only part of history Pendley might like to see left out. While Native tribes certainly suffered racist abuses, their relationships with the U.S. were actually established through and are still governed by nation-to-nation treaties, which carry constitutional weight as the “supreme law of the land.” The vast body of what is known as Indian law exists to support the United States’ political – not racial — obligations to tribes, which came in return for the relinquishment of vast lands and resources.
In his book, Pendley acknowledges this history by citing the 1974 Supreme Court decision knowns as Morton v. Mancari, which affirms the U.S.’s obligations to Native people under the Constitution. But in legal documents, his monthly column, and book passages, Pendley has repeatedly and inaccurately argued that the decision supports unconstitutional racial preferences.
“Nothing that he’s saying has gained any traction in the law.”
Pendley’s push to overturn Mancari ties into his past efforts to disrupt racial justice programs. In the 1990s, Pendley was the attorney for a highway guardrail construction company that objected to a Department of Transportation program favoring “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.” The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which in 1995 issued a ruling that severely curtailed affirmative action programs by imposing onerous burdens on racial preferences. In the wake of the decision, Pendley — again ignoring the weight of the treaties — repeatedly argued that “Mancari is likely unconstitutional.”
“This is fringe theory,” said EagleWoman. “Nothing that he’s saying has gained any traction in the law.”
That hasn’t stopped right-wing legal groups from pushing the argument in court, including efforts by Pendley himself.
If Pendley and these groups are successful, the repercussions would be enormous. “If Mancari were overturned, it would be an enormous legal and political disaster,” said Robert Coulter, executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. “Almost nothing would be the same. Around 200 years of congressional legislation would suddenly be unconstitutional and invalid.”
“Some of the right-wing legal theories are like that,” Coulter added. “The aim is to create a disaster so that the legal framework as we know it would cease to exist, and Indian tribes would have virtually no rights.”
Stripping Protections for Sacred Sites
Mancari isn’t the only target of Pendley’s attacks on Native rights. As a lawyer with Mountain States Legal Foundation and in his writing, he has argued against tribes and Native people in cases related to voting rights, tribal courts’ jurisdiction, tribes’ tax-exempt status, and the right of Indigenous people to speak their languages in the workplace. However, Pendley has perhaps most frequently argued to deny protections for sites considered sacred to Native tribes, including those located on and near public lands.
Pendley’s approach is especially significant given that the Bureau of Land Management oversees 245 million acres of public lands — 12 percent of the United States — many of which border tribal land. Any pollution emitted by development projects could impact tribal citizens’ health or the health of the wild flora and fauna on which they rely. Located on the land itself are numerous cultural resources, including sacred sites, that are important to Indigenous people’s ways of life.
Native American prayer ties are shown along the walking trail at Devils Tower National Monument in Devils Tower, Wyo. on July 9, 2015. Photo: Dan Cepeda/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP
In February 1995, the National Park Service decided that Devils Tower, a butte in Wyoming, would be voluntarily off-limits to climbers every June, in order to respect area tribes’ religious practices. Pendley was incensed and fought the policy in court . Despite the fact that several tribes continue spiritual practices at the site today, he claimed in a column that “Devils Tower was never a sacred site for American Indians!” As evidence, he noted that there were no “sightings” of American Indians at Devils Tower in the mid-to-late 1800s and pointed to a document from 1934 that claimed there was no “physical evidence” that the structure was important to people.
More recently, he represented a county defending the Trump administration’s reduction in size of the Bears Ears National Monument, which is considered sacred to multiple tribes. And he fought against the Interior Department on behalf of the oil and gas company Solenex, which sought to drill in the pristine Badger-Two Medicine area of Montana, considered sacred to the Blackfeet people. (Pendley recused himself from work related to Bears Ears and involvement in the Solenex case after he came on as acting BLM head. A federal court upheld the cancellation of the energy company’s lease in June.)
As a lawyer, Pendley also battled a decision by the Arizona Department of Transportation to refuse to buy rocks for highway projects from a company that mined the material from Woodruff Butte, considered sacred to the Hopi, Zuni, and Navajo people. And he opposed the federal government’s decision to cancel a timber sale near Medicine Mountain and the Medicine Wheel, a national monument and a sacred site to Indigenous people, located in the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming. Pendley represented a nearby sawmill that he claimed was prevented from purchasing the unharvested wood.
In his writings, Pendley frequently compared protections for sacred sites to legal cases barring Christian symbols in public spaces, like crosses removed from public property and prayers at public school. He claimed in “Warriors for the West” that “the law of the land regarding government activity ‘respecting an establishment of religion’ is Judeo-Christian, ‘no,’ and pantheism, ‘yes.’”
Fletcher, the Indigenous law expert from Michigan State University, dismissed the idea that the federal government too frequently protects sacred sites. “I would say that 95 percent of sacred sites cases that Indians or tribes bring, they lose,” said Fletcher. “The Devils Tower thing is particularly ridiculous. There is a voluntary climbing ban for one month in the summertime. There is no protection for Indian people on Devils Tower or really anywhere else.” Proportionally, efforts to maintain Christian symbols in public spaces are more successful than cases to protect sacred sites “by an incredible margin,” he added.
At a hearing regarding the BLM’s move to Colorado last September, Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., asked Pendley about one of his dismissive statements about sacred sites. “I was not speaking as a member of the BLM. I was speaking as a private attorney representing private clients,” Pendley replied. “I’m proud to speak on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management now, and I’m particularly pleased with the opportunities to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribes to establish tribal energy resource agreements to permit tribes to develop their energy resources.”
“I have a new client,” he claimed. “My client’s the American people.”
Delaying Payments to Tribes
At face value, Pendley could be seen as a natural ally to tribes and Native people that have sought to increase resource extraction on their lands. Yet he has even sided with energy companies against those very tribes interested in extractive development.
Large numbers of Native people rely on royalties paid by the oil and gas industry for extraction on their land. In many places, mining takes place on Native land that is held in trust by the federal government. Essentially, because of a long history of dispossession, the land is owned by a tribe or an American Indian person, but the federal government controls the leasing to ranchers, miners, or oil and gas companies. Royalties are then distributed by the federal government back to the tribal members who own the land. Many tribes and individuals plan their budgets with the royalties in mind and, for those living on razor-thin margins in economically depressed areas, they are an essential lifeline.
For decades leading up to the 1980s, oil and gas producers operating 21,000 leases located on land held in trust were required to pay Native owners their royalties within a month of production. But in 1983, while Pendley was serving as assistant secretary for energy and minerals in Reagan’s Interior Department, his agency changed the policy, allowing the companies two months instead of one. Several people objected, mostly Comanche tribal members from the Anadarko area of Oklahoma, submitting a petition to the Bureau of Indian Affairs describing the hardship they would face if the change moved forward.
Royalty payments had already been delayed while the Minerals Management Service, which distributed royalty payments, updated its accounting system. “We have suffered from non-payment of royalties for months. Many of us have lost our cars and other property while the government failed for months and months to collect or disburse millions of dollars in royalties belonging to us,” the petitioners wrote. “Now just as we are beginning to get some of these back royalties and pay our bills and living costs, the government proposes to cut off our royalties again.”
“The BLM can and does have a big impact on tribes and tribal resources. It would be horrifying to see him really in charge.”
“If you permit these new regulations our royalties will be cut off in the middle of winter,” they continued. “How will we pay for our food and housing and fuel? Do you think, Mr. Secretary, that our creditors are as lenient with us as you propose to be with the oil companies? No! Our mortgages and car payments are due every month. We must pay for our groceries when we buy them — not sixty to ninety days later.”
The move was even opposed by other officials in Reagan’s Interior Department. “It will be very difficult to to explain this change satisfactorily to the Indian people,” Ken Smith, a member of the Wasco Tribe of Oregon who was then serving as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, wrote in a 1983 memo to Pendley. “To suspend royalties for another month, probably in mid-winter, when change of regulations takes place, would work a tremendous hardship and create create a great deal of criticism.”
Pendley declined to comment on whether he heeded the tribal members concerns. Current regulations indicate that royalty payments are due one month after the month of production.
Echoes of Pendley’s failure to properly consult with tribes during the Reagan era are already visible during his tenure as BLM’s acting director. The area surrounding the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, for example, is considered sacred to many Indigenous people. As the region became a hotbed for Covid-19 cases in the U.S., Pendley’s BLM was finalizing a resource management plan for the area. Rather than rescheduling public meetings regarding the plans, the bureau transferred them online, to take place while many of those most impacted were scrambling to manage the health emergency wreaking havoc on the community.
“Secretary Bernhardt and Acting Director Pendley are using this crisis to hand our public lands over to the oil and gas industry, and are silencing communities in the process,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., said at the time in a statement. “Native Americans are contracting and dying from coronavirus at an alarming rate, and the Trump administration should be working to make sure they have the resources they need to stop deaths, not keep drilling at record speed.”
“Many folks near the Chaco region live in areas without internet access,” Haaland added. “By moving forward, the Department is failing to fulfill its trust and treaty obligations to Native Americans, and it is failing to protect a national treasure.”
Ultimately a public comment period was extended, but similar scenarios have played out throughout Native communities around the U.S.
“The BLM can and does have a big impact on tribes and tribal resources,” said Coulter. “It would be horrifying to see him really in charge.”


theintercept--2020-08-02--Border Patrol Launches Militarized Raid of Borderlands Humanitarian Aid Camp

Border Patrol agents in armored vehicles launched a nighttime raid on a humanitarian aid camp in Southern Arizona on Friday .
Agents zip-tied volunteers ’ hands behind their backs , shouted at them with rifles raised , and confiscated their cellphones as well as the organization ’ s medical records .
At least two helicopters hovered above the camp and a film crew documented the operation on the ground .
Agents moved through camp structures and arrested more than 30 undocumented immigrants who were receiving treatment after trekking through the desert in the middle of heat wave .
The humanitarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faith-based organization out of Tucson , believes the operation was likely part retaliation , part violent publicity stunt .
The raid marked the second time in two years that the Border Patrol descended on one of No More Deaths ’ aid stations immediately after the group published materials that cast a negative light on the border enforcement agency .
On Wednesday , the group shared documents regarding a remarkably similar raid on the same camp three years ago , which showed the Border Patrol ’ s national union clamoring for a crackdown on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than 24 hours after the documents were posted online , Border Patrol entered the camp without a warrant and took an undocumented woman into custody .
The agency then surrounded the location and set up a checkpoint to detain and search volunteers as they came and went .
The camp remained surrounded until Friday ’ s raid .
Montana Thames , who gathered accounts from the detained volunteers , described the operation as a militarized show of force that featured the same Border Patrol tactical teams that were recently deployed to suppress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Thames , who is also a No More Deaths volunteer , when agents entered the camp in Arivaca , Arizona , roughly 10 miles north of the border , they claimed they had a warrant but refused to show it .
“ They pretty aggressively got people out of there and then trashed the camp , ” Thames told The Intercept Saturday .
In addition to the aircraft hovering above the camp , volunteers reported the use of at least two dozen marked and unmarked vehicles , ATVs , and armored personnel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be members of the Border Patrol ’ s BORTAC teams , the same commando-style units that were filmed bundling protesters into unmarked cars in Portland , volunteers said — photos from the raid appear to back up those claims .
According to Thames , members of the tactical unit raised their rifles and shouted at volunteers while they were zip-tied .
The decision to wait until nightfall to conduct the operation felt deliberate and produced “ unnecessary trauma ” for the migrants receiving care and volunteers alike , Thames said : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was setting , raided the camp when it was dark , and created a lot more fear and chaos.
” In a series of tweets , Roy D. Villareal , the chief of the Border Patrol ’ s Tucson sector , said that agents detected a group of migrants moving through the desert southeast of Arivaca the day before the raid took place after tracking them “ through remote mountains for two days.
” Villareal said agents encountered a migrant “ outside the perimeter of the camp ” who “ was quickly evaluated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Arivaca Fire Department to a local hospital for medical treatment.
” No More Deaths said that the woman in question was receiving care and that the arrest occurred inside the camp , without a warrant .
“ I know for a fact , 100 percent , that all of the patients were stable and were getting care from medically trained , medically professional volunteers , ” Thames said .
Volunteers on the ground were particularly disturbed by the way that the Border Patrol , after seizing the volunteers ’ phones and foreclosing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the event , proceeded to film the operation , climbing on top of vehicles to get various angles of migrants being placed under arrest .
“ There was someone seeking aid and they had this person stretched out like a photoshoot , ” Thames said .
“ The aid workers were detained for two hours , so I think it ’ s safe to say that for at least an hour or two , they were just taking photos of people for their PR.
” eventually showed No More Deaths a copy of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Thames said , which identified phones and paperwork as targets .
While volunteers were zip-tied , the agents ripped through every vehicle and structure on the property and confiscated the group ’ s “ SOAP notes , ” paperwork that the organization uses to document medical conditions and care provided to migrants at the camp .
Many No More Deaths volunteers also work as nurses and first responders ; the group models its work off of standards that the Red Cross uses in conflict zones around the world .
Once the migrants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the volunteers were released .
They found that the physical damage to their camp was severe .
Border agents slashed tent walls open with knives and photos from the scene show ransacked tents .
“ They went into our office and took all the paperwork , ” Thames said .
“ They took all of our SOAP notes , all of our medical records , and every single volunteer ’ s phone.
” The phones and humanitarian aid documents remain in Border Patrol custody .
The Intercept sent the Border Patrol a series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and requested an unedited copy of the footage of the operation .
The agency provided no answers or footage , and instead issued the following statement : “ On July 31 , 2020 , Border Patrol agents from the Tucson Border Patrol Sector , with support from CBP Air and Marine Operation ’ s Tucson Air Branch executed a federal search warrant on the No More Deaths camp near Arivaca , Arizona .
Upon entry , over three dozen Illegal border crossers were found within the camp.
” This is not the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ More Deaths camp after the group released unflattering information about the agency .
In January 2018 , a plainclothes Border Patrol team set up surveillance on one of the group ’ s aid stations in the unincorporated community of Ajo , Arizona , just hours after the group published a report implicating the agency in the destruction of thousands of one-gallon water jugs left for migrants crossing the desert .
The raid that followed led to the arrest of humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren and two young undocumented men from Central America .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with food , clothes , and a place to sleep over three days .
The U.S. attorney ’ s office charged him with smuggling and conspiracy .
He faced up to 20 years in prison .
His first trial ended in a hung jury .
He was acquitted on all charges in the second .
Trump administration prosecutors in Arizona have brought nine federal cases against No More Deaths , nearly all of them for leaving water for migrants on public lands .
The only convictions the administration was able to obtain were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal judge , who wrote that they hinged on “ gruesome logic ” that criminalized “ interfering with a border enforcement strategy of deterrence by death.
” The group , whose mission is to end death and suffering in the Sonoran Desert , was born in response to the Border Patrol ’ s multi-decade , ongoing strategy of funneling migration flows into the border ’ s deadliest areas — at minimum , more than 7,200 people have died as a result of the strategy .
“ Yesterday , Border Patrol harmed 30 people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basis those who migrate through the Arizona desert are targeted , terrorized , detained , and deported , ” Warren said in a statement Saturday .
“ Last night , we witnessed these tactics deployed against people who sought medical care and relief at our Byrd Camp aid station .
As always when humanitarian aid in the borderlands is targeted , those who seek care are the ones that face the brunt of these violent escalations.
” The Border Patrol ’ s first raid on No More Deaths ’ camp in Arivaca came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2017 inauguration .
Like the operation last week , the raid unfolded in the middle of a blistering heat wave and featured agents filming the operation on the ground .
In a June 2017 email released by the group last week , an individual who No More Deaths believes is a top official at the Border Patrol ’ s national union complained that waiting for a warrant unnecessarily delayed the operation and alleged , without evidence , that No More Deaths used humanitarian aid as cover to smuggle drugs and people across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shared revealed that BORTAC agents advised on the 2017 raid .
Both of the emails were released under the Freedom of Information Act .
The Border Patrol ’ s union has close ties to the White House through Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller , the ultra-hardline architect of the president ’ s border and immigration policies .
BORTAC , meanwhile , has repeatedly been called on for some of the administration ’ s most politicized operations , including a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities earlier this year and the more recent events in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Arizona is part of a broader pattern of agencies under the Department of Homeland Security , which includes the Border Patrol , Customs and Border Protection , and Immigration and Customs Enforcement , targeting critics of the president ’ s border and immigration policies with surveillance and aggressive law enforcement action .
As hacked documents reported on earlier this month by The Intercept showed , DHS and its component agencies have repeatedly cast border and immigration advocates as members of “ antifa ” and violent anarchist extremists , groups that the agency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terrorists .
“ That ’ s what fascists do — they retaliate , ” said Greg Kuykendall , a Tucson-based attorney who represented Scott Warren as the government tried and failed to put him behind bars .
“ Tucson juries and Tucson judges have experienced the kind of perils that people face in the desert and they understand that humanitarian aid is not a crime — it ’ s a gift from God.
” “ In any civilized society , of which there are plenty around the rest of the world , humanitarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good and a thing that needs to be provided , normally by either NGOs or governments themselves , and they ’ re absolutely off limits from law enforcement — that ’ s well established in the International Red Cross guidelines , as well as the United Nations ’ guidelines , ” Kuykendall added .
“ Every organization that deals with refugees and people that are in crisis situations , whether they ’ re manmade or not , understands that humanitarian aid stations can not be places where law enforcement is allowed to go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that perhaps the Border Patrol deployments to Portland informed the agency ’ s decisions in Arizona .
“ They ’ re pissed off they didn ’ t get sent to Portland to beat some hippies ’ heads , ” he said , so instead the agency flexed its muscles against the targets it had on hand : a group of weary migrants and humanitarian aid volunteers providing them care .
“ There ’ s a lot of places you could be looking for harm being done besides the baked desert of Southern Arizona @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maybe Washington , D.C .
”

Camouflaged U.S. Border Patrol agents in armored vehicles launched a nighttime raid on a humanitarian aid camp in southern Arizona on Friday. Agents zip-tied volunteers’ hands behind their backs, shouted at them with rifles raised, and confiscated their cellphones, as well as the organization’s medical records. At least two helicopters hovered above the camp and a film crew documented the operation on the ground. Agents moved through camp structures and arrested more than 30 undocumented immigrants who were receiving treatment after trekking through the desert in the middle of heat wave.
The humanitarian group, No More Deaths, a faith-based organization out of Tucson, believes the operation was likely part retaliation, part violent publicity stunt. The raid marked the second time in two years that the Border Patrol descended on one of No More Deaths’ aid stations immediately after the group published materials that cast a negative light on the border enforcement agency.
On Wednesday, the group shared documents regarding a remarkably similar raid on the same camp three years ago, which showed the Border Patrol’s national union clamoring for a crackdown on No More Deaths. On Thursday, less than 24 hours after the documents were posted online, Border Patrol entered the camp without a warrant and took an undocumented woman into custody. The agency then surrounded the location and set up a checkpoint to detain and search volunteers as they came and went. The camp remained surrounded until Friday’s raid.
“They started rolling in when the sun was setting, raided the camp when it was dark, and created a lot more fear and chaos.”
Montana Thames, who gathered accounts from the detained volunteers, described the operation as a militarized show of force that featured the same Border Patrol tactical teams that were recently deployed to suppress protests in Portland, Oregon. According to Thames, who is also a No More Deaths volunteer, when agents entered the camp in Arivaca, Arizona, roughly 10 miles north of the border, they claimed that they had a warrant but refused to show it. “They pretty aggressively got people out of there and then trashed the camp,” Thames told The Intercept on Saturday. In addition to the aircraft hovering above the camp, volunteers reported the use of at least two dozen marked and unmarked vehicles, ATVs, and armored personnel carriers.
Some of the agents looked to be members of the Border Patrol’s BORTAC teams, the same commando-style units that were filmed bundling protesters into unmarked cars in Portland, volunteers said — photos from the raid appear to back up those claims. According to Thames, members of the tactical unit raised their rifles and shouted at volunteers while they were zip-tied. The decision to wait until nightfall to conduct the operation felt deliberate and produced “unnecessary trauma” for the migrants receiving care and volunteers alike, Thames said: “They started rolling in when the sun was setting, raided the camp when it was dark, and created a lot more fear and chaos.”
NEW PHOTOS:
One volunteer was able to get a few pictures from inside camp when BORTAC and Border Patrol entered. Heavily armed agents drove straight into the humanitarian aid camp in a Bearcat tank as helicopters circled overhead. pic.twitter.com/Vnu9ecsQ9A — No More Deaths | No Más Muertes (@NoMoreDeaths) August 2, 2020
In a series of tweets, Roy D. Villareal, chief of the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, said that agents detected a group of migrants moving through the desert southeast of Arivaca the day before the raid took place after tracking them “through remote mountains for two days.” Villareal said agents encountered a migrant “outside the perimeter of the camp” who “was quickly evaluated by a Border Patrol EMT and transported by Arivaca Fire Department to a local hospital for medical treatment.”
No More Deaths said that the woman in question was receiving care and that the arrest occurred inside the camp without a warrant. “I know for a fact, 100 percent, that all of the patients were stable and were getting care from medically trained, medically professional volunteers,” Thames said.
Volunteers on the ground were particularly disturbed by the way that the Border Patrol, after seizing the volunteers’ phones and foreclosing the possibility of non-law enforcement documentation of the event, proceeded to film the operation, climbing on top of vehicles to get various angles of migrants being placed under arrest. “There was someone seeking aid and they had this person stretched out like a photoshoot,” Thames said. “The aid workers were detained for two hours, so I think it’s safe to say that for at least an hour or two, they were just taking photos of people for their PR.”
Border Patrol agents eventually showed No More Deaths a copy of a search warrant for the aid station, Thames said, which identified phones and paperwork as targets. While volunteers were zip-tied, the agents ripped through every vehicle and structure on the property and confiscated the group’s “SOAP notes,” paperwork that the organization uses to document medical conditions and care provided to migrants at the camp. Many No More Deaths volunteers also work as nurses and first responders; the group models its work off standards that the Red Cross uses in conflict zones around the world.
Once the migrants were arrested and loaded into buses, the volunteers were released. They found that the physical damage to their camp was severe. Border agents slashed tent walls open with knives and photos from the scene show ransacked tents. “They went into our office and took all the paperwork,” Thames said. “They took all of our SOAP notes, all of our medical records, and every single volunteer’s phone.” The phones and humanitarian aid documents remain in Border Patrol custody.
More photos from the morning after Border Patrol ransacked Byrd Camp, a humanitarian aid station near Arivaca, AZ pic.twitter.com/2NCvy10FL1 — No More Deaths | No Más Muertes (@NoMoreDeaths) August 2, 2020
The Intercept sent the Border Patrol a series of questions regarding Friday’s raid and requested an unedited copy of the footage of the operation. The agency provided no answers or footage, and instead issued the following statement: “On July 31, 2020, Border Patrol agents from the Tucson Border Patrol Sector, with support from CBP Air and Marine Operation’s Tucson Air Branch executed a federal search warrant on the No More Deaths camp near Arivaca, Arizona. Upon entry, over three dozen Illegal border crossers were found within the camp.”
This is not the first time the Border Patrol raided a No More Deaths camp after the group released unflattering information about the agency. In January 2018, a plainclothes Border Patrol team set up surveillance on one of the group’s aid stations in the unincorporated community of Ajo, Arizona, just hours after the group published a report implicating the agency in the destruction of thousands of gallon water jugs left for migrants crossing the desert. The raid that followed led to the arrest of humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren and two young undocumented men from Central America.
Warren was accused of providing the men with food, clothes, and a place to sleep over three days. The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged him with smuggling and conspiracy. He faced up to 20 years in prison. His first trial ended in a hung jury. He was acquitted on all charges in the second. Trump administration prosecutors in Arizona have brought nine federal cases against No More Deaths, nearly all of them for leaving water for migrants on public lands. The only convictions the administration was able to obtain were tossed out earlier this year by a federal judge, who wrote that they hinged on “gruesome logic” that criminalized “interfering with a border enforcement strategy of deterrence by death.”
The group, whose mission is to end death and suffering in the Sonoran Desert, was born in response to the Border Patrol’s multi-decade ongoing strategy of funneling migration flows into the border’s deadliest areas — at minimum, more than 7,200 people have died as a result of the strategy.
“Yesterday, Border Patrol harmed 30 people in irreparable ways. On a daily basis those who migrate through the Arizona desert are targeted, terrorized, detained, and deported,” Warren said in a statement Saturday. “Last night, we witnessed these tactics deployed against people who sought medical care and relief at our Byrd Camp aid station. As always when humanitarian aid in the borderlands is targeted, those who seek care are the ones that face the brunt of these violent escalations.”
“As always when humanitarian aid in the borderlands is targeted, those who seek care are the ones that face the brunt of these violent escalations.”
The Border Patrol’s first raid on No More Deaths’ camp in Arivaca came just months after Trump’s January 2017 inauguration. Like the operation last week, the raid unfolded in the middle of a blistering heat wave and featured agents filming the operation on the ground. In a June 2017 email released by the group last week, an individual who No More Deaths believes is a top official at the Border Patrol’s national union complained that waiting for a warrant unnecessarily delayed the operation and alleged, without evidence, that No More Deaths used humanitarian aid as cover to smuggle drugs and people across the border. A second email the group shared revealed that BORTAC agents advised on the 2017 raid.
Both of the emails were released under the Freedom of Information Act. The Border Patrol’s union has close ties to the White House through Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller, the ultra-hardline architect of the president’s border and immigration policies. BORTAC, meanwhile, has repeatedly been called on for some of the administration’s most politicized operations, including a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities earlier this year and the more recent events in Portland.
The Border Patrol’s campaign against No More Deaths in Arizona is part of a broader pattern of agencies under the Department of Homeland Security — which includes the Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — targeting critics of the president’s border and immigration policies with surveillance and aggressive law enforcement action. As hacked documents reported on earlier this month by The Intercept showed, DHS and its component agencies have repeatedly cast border and immigration advocates as members of “antifa” and violent anarchist extremists, groups that the agency and the president have described as domestic terrorists.
“That’s what fascists do — they retaliate,” said Greg Kuykendall, a Tucson-based attorney who represented Scott Warren as the government tried and failed to put him behind bars. “Tucson juries and Tucson judges have experienced the kind of perils that people face in the desert and they understand that humanitarian aid is not a crime — it’s a gift from God.”
“In any civilized society, of which there are plenty around the rest of the world, humanitarian aid camps are recognized as a basic good and a thing that needs to be provided, normally by either NGOs or governments themselves, and they’re absolutely off-limits from law enforcement. That’s well-established in the International Red Cross guidelines, as well as the United Nations’ guidelines,” Kuykendall added. “Every organization that deals with refugees and people that are in crisis situations, whether they’re manmade or not, understands that humanitarian aid stations cannot be places where law enforcement is allowed to go hunting.”
The veteran defense attorney suggested that perhaps the Border Patrol deployments to Portland informed the agency’s decisions in Arizona. “They’re pissed off they didn’t get sent to Portland to beat some hippies’ heads,” he said, so instead the agency flexed its muscles against the targets it had on hand: a group of weary migrants and humanitarian aid volunteers providing them care.
“There’s a lot of places you could be looking for harm being done besides the baked desert of Southern Arizona,” Kuykendall said. “Like maybe Washington, D.C.”