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Temecula, CA – On Monday, January 8, 2007 people from throughout California Indian Country will gather at a Tribal Leaders Forum in San Diego , California to express their concerns regarding the growing number of human and civil rights violations occurring in California Indian Country.

Congressional and Tribal leaders will be attending The 2006 Mid-Term Elections and Indian Country: What Lies Ahead for Native America ? forum at the US Grant Hotel. Invited and scheduled Congressional members include Senator Daniel K. Inouye; Congressman George Miller; Congressman Norm Hicks; and Joe Garcia, President of the National Congress of American Indians.

The forum is an opportune time to ask the elected leaders in attendance what they plan on doing about the ever growing population of Indian individuals who have been subjected to and tormented by the unjust actions of tribal officials.

Since the passage of Prop 1A, which legalized Indian Gaming in California , the number of individual Indians who have suffered at the hands of tribal officials has drastically risen. Tribes such as the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, the Jamul Indian Village , the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Tribe, the Redding Rancheria, the Enterprise Rancheria, and many others have found it fitting to deny or strip its members of their basic rights.

These acts have violated the United States and Tribal Constitutions; the Bill of Rights; the Indian Civil Rights Act; and tribal laws which were specifically enacted to protect the basic rights of the Indian individual.

However, tribes and tribal officials have, as a matter of course, invoked the tribes’ sovereign immunity to escape prosecution for their actions in State or Federal Courts. As a result, the Courts have routinely dismissed the actions for lack of jurisdiction, and the victims of this “tribal abuse” find themselves with no recourse with which to hold tribal officials accountable for their corrupt acts and abuse of power.

It is time to put Indian Country and Congress on notice that acts to deny or strip individuals of their fundamental human and civil rights are unacceptable. Let your voice be heard by joining with us on January 3, 2007 in San Diego .

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