Past News Items

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has already assigned staff to prepare plans that will provide 5,000 additional school seats for Indian and Eskimo pupils and correct unsafe and obsolete Federal Indian school facilities in line with yesterday’s mandate from President Kennedy, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

Swift action was possible, Secretary Udall added, because the Bureau has for some time been formulating long-range plans for expanding and modernizing its nationwide school system for Indian youngsters.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of the 7th Annual Tribal Nation’s Conference, the White House announced yesterday an Interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for setting a Path to End Homelessness in Native American communities. In support of that interagency effort, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has finalized updates to regulations on the Housing Improvement Program (HIP), as an important part of the Obama Administration’s Tiwahe initiative, which is designed to promote the stability and security of American Indian families.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced the establishment of new Bureau of Indian Affairs area offices at Window Rock, Arizona, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

An administrative staff to serve both new offices will remain in Gallup, New Mexico and some of the personnel assigned to Window Rock will continue to have headquarters there.

Albuquerque, NM – This week, prosecutors and special agents from the Office of the Attorney General joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal law enforcement agencies, service providers and the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (CSVANW) to combat human trafficking on Native American lands in New Mexico. The working conference, Sex Trafficking in Indian Country, demonstrates the critical importance of federal, state and tribal entities working together with service providers to attack human trafficking and protect victims on tribal lands in New Mexico.

A Navajo Indian medicine man will demonstrate the sacred art of sandpainting for visitors to the Interior Department I s Art Gallery beginning October 12.

Fred Stevens, a Navajo medicine man from the Indian Reservation at Lupton, Arizona will create sand paintings used in Navajo religious-healing ceremonies. He will appear in connection with the Gilbert Maxwell Collection of Navajo Weaving now being displayed at the gallery.

WASHINGTON – Following President Obama’s State of the Union address, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will travel to Indian Country with stops in Arizona and New Mexico. Secretary Jewell will mark continued progress in the transformation of the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) school process and make an historic announcement on the restoration of tribal homelands.

The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs announced steps are being taken to implement a ,new law which
provides for payment to the Southern Paiute Indians for lands taken from them in 1860. Regulations are being amended to permit
preparation of a tribal roll.

An Act of October 17, 1968, authorized the distribution of funds derived from a judgment by the Indian Claims Commission,
and directed the Department to prepare a roll to serve as a basis for paying the money.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Deputy Secretary of the Interior Michael Connor today announced a schedule through 2015 for the continued implementation of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Program) that identifies locations representing more than half of all the fractional interests and half of all owners across Indian Country.

Award of two contracts totaling $264,444 for road improvement projects on Fort Totten Reservation in North Dakota and Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota was announced today by Commissioner Philleo Nash of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.

WASHINGTON, DC – As part of President Obama’s commitment to help strengthen Native American communities, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today announced the latest step in the implementation of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program), as the Department signed its next cooperative agreement, this time with the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation located in northeastern South Dakota and in southeastern North Dakota.