Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock
()
or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
<p>Office of Public Affairs</p>
Delivery of program services to the federally recognized tribes and individual Indians and Alaska Natives, whether directly or through contracts, grants or compacts, is administered by the twelve regional offices and 83 agencies that report to the BIA Deputy Director-Field Operations, located in Washington, D.C.
You are viewing ARCHIVED content published online before January 20, 2025. Please note that this content is NOT UPDATED, and links may not work. Additionally, any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.
Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Bryan Newland will host a briefing for Tribal leaders on the President’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget request for Indian Affairs. The briefing will take place via conference call on Friday, April 15, 2022, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. EDT.
Indian Affairs is unique among Federal employers in that it is authorized to utilize an Indian Preference policy in hiring. Given the BIA’s long historical and significant presence in the communities it serves and Congress’s recognition of needing its workforce to reflect those communities, the Bureau was given the authority to use Indian Preference in its recruitment and hiring processes. Today, that policy applies throughout the Indian Affairs organization.
Indian Affairs - Office of Public Affairs
WASHINGTON – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Lawrence S. Roberts announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has improved its Fee-to-Trust Handbook to reduce the processing time for requests from federally recognized tribes to have land taken into trust for their benefit and proclamations that declare the lands are part of their tribal reservations. Under the revised guidance, these requests may now be submitted simultaneously.
"After hearing from tribal leaders, we have taken another step in reducing lengthy and burdensome processes that hinder tribal governments in more fully utilizing their lands for the betterment of their people,” Roberts said. “The BIA’s revisions to its Fee-to-Trust Handbook provide tribes with greater flexibility in submitting land-into-trust and reservation proclamation requests while reducing the time spent to process them.”
“This effort is part of President Obama’s commitment to work with tribal leaders to restore tribal homelands,” Roberts continued. “Since 2009, we have restored 416,000 acres to tribal ownership and we anticipate reaching the Administration’s goal of restoring half a million acres.”
The Handbook revisions include allowing a tribal government to combine its applications for requesting a land parcel be put into trust status (from fee simple ownership) and having a reservation proclamation issued for it. Previously, a requesting tribe would have to wait until the land is in trust before submitting a reservation proclamation request. The revised Handbook also provides guidance to BIA employees for processing simultaneous fee-to-trust and reservation proclamation requests.
The revisions also provide guidance on processing reservation proclamations where land has already been acquired in trust. A proclamation will not be finalized until the underlying land parcel has been taken into trust. The revised sections are 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 of the Handbook.
The Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs can issue reservation proclamations under authority delegated by the Secretary of the Interior and in accordance with the Act of June 18, 1934 (48 Stat. 984; 25 USC 467). Lands proclaimed reservations are for the exclusive use of Indians who are entitled to reside on them by enrollment or tribal membership. The BIA publishes reservation proclamations in the Federal Register.
The Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs oversees the BIA, which is headed by a director who is responsible for managing day-to-day operations through four offices – Indian Services, Justice Services, Trust Services and Field Operations. These offices directly administer or fund tribally based infrastructure, law enforcement, social services (including child welfare), tribal governance, natural and energy resources, and trust management programs for the nation’s federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and villages through 12 regional offices and 81 agencies.
The Office of Trust Services Division of Real Estate Services administers the fee-to-trust regulations at 25 CFR Part 151 and reservation proclamations under the Act of June 18, 1934 (48 Stat. 984; 25 USC 467). For more information about the Division of Real Estate Services, visit http://www.indianaffairs.gov/WhoWeAre/BIA/OTS/RealEstate/index.htm.
You are viewing ARCHIVED content published online before January 20, 2025. Please note that this content is NOT UPDATED, and links may not work. Additionally, any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.
The Department of the Interior’s Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs today announced new regulations to improve implementation of the Buy Indian Act to promote economic development opportunities in Indian Country. The final rule was developed in consultation with Tribes after the Department proposed revisions to the Buy Indian Act regulations last year.
You are viewing ARCHIVED content published online before January 20, 2025. Please note that this content is NOT UPDATED, and links may not work. Additionally, any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.
Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Bryan Newland has completed a four-day tour of meetings and listening sessions with Tribal leaders and members of the public across New Mexico and Arizona.
You are viewing ARCHIVED content published online before January 20, 2025. Please note that this content is NOT UPDATED, and links may not work. Additionally, any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.
The Department of the Interior today announced nearly 3,000 landowners with fractional interests at the Crow Reservation have been sent more than $97 million in purchase offers from the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations. Landowners who received offers have until April 11, 2022, to consider and return accepted offers in the pre-paid postage envelopes provided.
You are viewing ARCHIVED content published online before January 20, 2025. Please note that this content is NOT UPDATED, and links may not work. Additionally, any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.
The Biden-Harris Administration today submitted to Congress the President’s Budget for fiscal year 2023. The President’s Budget details his vision to expand on the historic progress our country has made over the last year and deliver the agenda he laid out in his State of the Union address—to build a better America, reduce the deficit, reduce costs for families, and grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out.
You are viewing ARCHIVED content published online before January 20, 2025. Please note that this content is NOT UPDATED, and links may not work. Additionally, any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.
The Department of the Interior’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs today announced that it will hold nation-to-nation consultations with Tribes on draft amendments to two different regulations, one regarding the fee-to-trust process and one regarding Class III gaming compacts. The potential changes to these separate regulations aim to address concerns about their clarity, efficiency, and cost. Tribal leaders were notified of upcoming consultations in a letter from Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland.
Indian Affairs - Office of Public Affairs
WASHINGTON – Last year, President Trump and President Niinistӧ of Finland finalized an agreement to return American Indian ancestral remains and funerary objects taken over a century ago from what is now Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Today, U.S. Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt, Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Tara Katuk Sweeney and other officials joined President Trump in the Oval Office to recognize the cultural and ancestral importance of these items being returned safely to the Mesa Verde region.
“The leadership of President Trump and President Niinistӧ of Finland resulted in the return of these important objects to their rightful place in Indian Country, said Secretary Bernhardt. “They are to be commended for their solemn efforts.”
“Repatriating ancestral remains to the Tribes that are culturally connected to the Mesa Verde region underscores the importance of continued protection of the heritage and traditions of our Indian nations,” said Assistant Secretary Sweeney. “While this is a solemn occasion, I express my humble gratitude to President Trump and President Niinistӧ for leading a team of dedicated individuals working alongside Tribal governments to achieve this successful conclusion.”
In 1891, Swedish research Gustaf Nordenskiold conducted excavations in what is now Mesa Verde National Park, removing a large collection of American Indian ancestral remains, funerary items and other cultural items. Mesa Verde is a complex of stone dwellings hand-built into cliffs, and was home to Ancestral Pueblo people for more than 700 years, from 600 to 1300 C.E. The excavated items became part of the ethnographic collection of the National Museum of Finland.
Since 2016, the U.S. government, led by the U.S. Department of State, with support from Mesa Verde National Park and others at the Department of the Interior, has supported the associated Tribes in their request to repatriate certain items from the Nordenskiold collection identified as ancestral remains, and cultural items such as funerary objects as defined under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
Under NAGPRA, Federal law requires that U.S. museums and Federal agencies transfer human remains and funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations that have requested them. NAGPRA’s requirements position the United States as a global leader in honoring indigenous peoples’ rights for repatriation of cultural heritage and ancestral remains under U.S. law.
Although NAGPRA does not apply internationally, the U.S. refers to the national policy established by NAGPRA in its support for Tribal requests for repatriation from foreign countries. This is one of several international repatriations from foreign museums that Interior has supported in recent years in response to Tribes’ requests for assistance. Interior coordinates with the Departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security to support Tribes seeking repatriation of cultural items held abroad in museums or private collections or sold at foreign auctions. Interior also maintains an informal internal working group, co-led by the Office of International Affairs and the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, to coordinate these efforts.
More information on NAGPRA’s domestic application and Interior’s role on international repatriations are online.
###
For Immediate Release: September 17, 2020
indianaffairs.gov
An official website of the U.S. Department of the Interior
