Past News Items

WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services will offer the next in its series of training sessions for tribal court personnel on June 17-20, 2013, in Grand Forks, N.D., with cases focusing on sexual assault on children.

Increased emphasis on the ultimate goal of transferring basic Indian Bureau functions either to the Indians themselves or to State and local highlighted the 1952 work of the Bureau, Commissioner Dillon S. Myer said today.

Among the major moves during the year were Indian Bureau-sponsored bills introduced in the last Congress to transfer civil and criminal jurisdiction over Indians to the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, California, Oregon and Washington;

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus announced today that a proposal has been sent to the Congress recommending designation of the Lewis and Clark Trail as a National Historic Trail in the National Trails System.

Legislation proposed earlier to the Congress would add National Historic Trails as a new category of trails within the National Trails System. They would complement the existing three types of trails: National Scenic Trails, National Recreation Trails, and connecting or side trails.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced the collaborative initiative between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Spirit Lake Tribe of North Dakota to improve the health, safety and welfare of children being placed in foster care through the use of mobile fingerprinting units. Under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, all adults in a household where minor children are to be placed must be fingerprinted as an integral part of the background investigation.

Reappointment of Harry J. W. Belvin, Durant, Oklahoma, as principal chief of the Oklahoma Choctaw Indian Nation for a four year term was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Belvin, who was first appointed to the position in 1948, was renamed on the basis of balloting by the tribal members from September through October 10. In the tribal election he received 5,254 votes and his opponent, Hampton Anderson of Atoka, 2,602.

Tribal members also expressed a preference for the four-year term by a margin of roughly two to one.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of David N. Burch as Superintendent at the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Intermountain School in Brigham City, Utah. Since 1970, Burch has been Deputy Assistant Area Director for Education in the Phoenix Area Office.

Intermountain was once the Bureau's largest school as an off-reservation boarding high school for Navajo Indian students. It is now an inter-tribal school, and the administration was transferred from the Navajo Area to the Phoenix Area last summer.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013, the Department of the Interior will hold the third and last in a series of consultation sessions on its Initial Implementation Plan outlining how Interior will carry out the land consolidation component of the historic Cobell Settlement. The meeting will take place in Seattle, Wash. The first and second consultation meetings were held Jan. 31 in Prior Lake, Minn., and Feb. 6 in Rapid City, S.D.

Action by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to clear up a 49-year-old injustice against a full blood Idaho Indian was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

The Indian is James J. Miles, a 70-year-old member of the Nez Perce Tribe and

Deacon of the Presbyterian Church, The Bureau's action, taken by Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons on July 29, was approval of an application filed by Miles about a year ago for a patent-in-fee or unrestricted title to a 114-acre tract near Orofino,

Carl M. Dupuis, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, has been appointed Chief of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Division of Facilities Engineering, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

He is the first Indian to hold this position in the Bureau.

''We are very pleased about this appointment," Commissioner Thompson said. "Carl is highly qualified and will do an excellent job in a field where there are now too few Indians. The Indian community needs to have more of its students move into engineering work."

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today lauded the final approval of the Cobell settlement and outlined steps that Interior will take to help implement the historic $3.4 billion settlement. The settlement resolves a long-running class action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government's trust management and historical accounting of individual American Indian trust accounts. It became final on November 24, 2012, following action by the Supreme Court and expiration of the appeal period.