Tribal leaders sound alarm as Trump’s federal cuts threaten Indigenous communities

From securing funding for Indian Health Services and ongoing water settlements to increasing investments in infrastructure, education and law enforcement, many Indigenous leaders and organizations are raising the alarm about the devastation that federal funding cuts could bring for Native Americans.

More than 60 tribal leaders and organizations from across Indian Country testified over three days to a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee on the federal funding needs of Indigenous people and their communities nationwide.

“I know there’s never enough funding to go around,” Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said, and he appreciates how the subcommittee has consistently set aside several days to hear Indian Country’s funding priorities.

“It is the process that starts the funding decisions for tribal programs, staffing and priorities for this administration,” he added. Tribal leaders and organizations gave five-minute testimonies to the subcommittee from Feb. 25 to Feb. 27.

Lewis used his five minutes to discuss the Trump administration’s actions and their impact on his community.

There is “real fear” within tribal communities about what is happening in Washington, D.C., he said, referencing the freezing of federal funding and the mass firing of federal employees across the government.

Lewis said that many may applaud the slashing of federal funding because they have been convinced it is fraught with waste and abuse, or even those who see federal employees as a new enemy.

“I doubt you will hear a tribal leader argue that the federal government can’t be made more efficient or that there aren’t places where cuts could be made,” he said. “After all, we have been dealing with the federal government longer than any other group in this country.”

However, Lewis said the “chainsaw approach” of indiscriminately cutting employees, taken by President Donald Trump and billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who has been directing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, will not create efficiencies or save billions of dollars.

He added that the cuts are being made without considering how they will impact services. Rather than making the government more efficient and effective, it is “creating a federal workforce that is paralyzed by fear.”

Lewis called the administration’s actions destabilizing and said they will have a disproportionate impact on Indian Country.

“The government-to-government relationship is only as strong as our federal partner,” he said. “And right now, there is a real concern that the federal side of this partnership has the real potential of being dismantled.”

Lewis said that reforms can be and should be made. But, he said, they should be made in a way that provides insight, dignity and consultation with tribal governments and among those with the experience and knowledge of tribal programs.

“It is up to this committee to make those decisions,” he said, ensuring certainty among Indigenous peoples that the essential programs they depend on won’t be cut.

“Certainty that our tribal sovereignty will be upheld and honored,” he added.

‘Treaty and trust obligations’

Multiple tribal leaders and organizations urged the subcommittee to help them hold the administration accountable for the federal funding allocated to Indigenous peoples and their communities.

“Tribal programs are not DEI initiatives,” Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community President Martin Harvier said, referring to the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government. “They are a fulfillment of treaty and trust obligations and must not be subject to arbitrary reductions or freezes.”

During the three-day subcommittee hearing, tribal leaders and organizations emphasized their communities’ various needs, highlighting issues ranging from insufficient law enforcement to the necessity of sustainable roads on tribal land to the importance of urban Native programs.

“Indian Country continues to struggle with generations of crumbling infrastructure, limited access to health care, underfunded law enforcement and an ongoing fight for clean water,” Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said. “These issues aren’t just numbers in a budget.”

Nygren said it is the everyday realities of Navajo and Native families throughout Indian Country. As an example, he told the subcommittee about the Navajo Nation’s dire need for emergency medical services support, highlighting how people needing an ambulance often wait 45 minutes or longer.

“If an ambulance is even available,” he added, noting that Navajo EMS answers roughly 20,000 calls a year and their funding has not been increased in decades.

“This is a matter of life and death,” he said. “We ask for dedicated funding for our tribal EMS, including a $4 million allocation specifically for the Navajo Nation.”

Funding needs for public safety were a big concern for many tribal leaders, including the San Carlos Apache Tribe.

San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler shared that the San Carlos Apache Police Department has only 19 officers and would need at least 75 to adequately patrol their large tribal land area.

Rambler said San Carlos Apache police officers work 12-hour shifts, patrol over 360,000 miles per year and endure extreme situations made worse by the lack of an adequate facility.

“Our police department is severely underfunded and public safety is severely compromised,” he said. “Our police department cannot compete with other places that offer higher salaries and better benefits. Other jurisdictions actively recruit away our officers.”

During the hearing, Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho, acknowledged the importance of keeping police officers and firefighters in Indigenous communities rather than allowing the community to serve merely as a training ground for them to move on to areas with better pay and benefits.

“Those are important issues we’ve got to work on,” he said.

Tohono O’odham Vice Chairwoman Carla Johnson shared with the subcommittee that there are over 700 miles of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) roads on her reservation, and they are all in poor condition.

“The BIA road maintenance program has been underfunded for years and has a huge backlog,” she said. “Only 13% of BIA roads nationwide are in acceptable condition.”

Johnson said that more funding must be provided for the BIA roads program because the roads within their community are how tribal citizens access essential services, how federal and tribal law enforcement engage in border security, and how EMS responds.

“This funding is critical for the safety of tribal members, law enforcement, emergency responders and all others using our reservation road,” she added.

The needs of Indigenous peoples do not stop at the boundaries of their tribal lands, and Urban Indian Health Institute Director Abigail Echo-Hawk used her testimony to remind the subcommittee that Indigenous peoples in urban areas deserve the same type of support.

Echo-Hawk said that about 76% of Native American people live off their tribal homelands and reside in urban areas.

“We need to remember the urban Indian population,” she said. “The treaty and trust responsibility for our health and wellness did not end when we stepped off the reservation.”

Echo-Hawk called on the subcommittee to support funding for the Indian Health Services and Urban Native Health Programs, essential resources and services for many Indigenous people.

“What I am asking you is to fight back with us,” she said. “Fight back to ensure that we have the resources and services as an Urban program to get the treatment for those coming to us.”

Senators and representatives call on administration

Amid growing concerns about implementing the Trump administration’s executive order on government workforce efficiency, over 100 Democratic U.S. senators and representatives signed a letter to Trump, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reminding them to uphold the federal government’s commitments to tribal nations.

The congresspeople noted that the U.S. government has trust and treaty responsibilities to tribal nations, which are implemented through various agencies to provide tribes with vital health care, education and social services.

“Your administration’s recent executive actions undermine legally required commitments to sovereign tribal nations, existing federal law, and the federal-Tribal government-to-government relationship,” they wrote in the letter.

The letter was headed by Rep. Melanie Stansbury and Sen. Martin Heinrich, Democrats from New Mexico. In total, 113 elected officials signed the letter from the Senate and Congress, including all of the Democratic members of Arizona’s delegation.

A spokesperson for Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego said he joined his colleagues in urging the Trump administration to protect resources in Indian Country and fulfill the federal government’s promises because he is committed to standing up for Native communities in Arizona.

“The recent funding freezes and mass firings within agencies like the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services only jeopardize essential services and create chaos,” the spokesperson said in a statement emailed to the Arizona Mirror.

The letter focuses on the administration’s executive order “Implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimiation Initiative” and its impact on Indian Country.

The congresspeople indicate that the administration has abruptly fired thousands of federal workers across various government agencies. They have received reports of more than 2,600 at the Department of the Interior, over 100 at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, more than 40 at the Bureau of Indian Education and approximately 950 Indian Health Service employees.

“Beyond the legal questions surrounding the ability to fire employees without specifying performance or conduct issues, any unilateral attempts to disrupt existing services administered or funded by the BIA, BIE, IHS, or Tribal-serving entities would directly violate the trust and treaty obligations of the United States to Tribal Nations,” the letter states.

The leaders urged the administration to take immediate action to “halt, exempt, and reverse” any federal offices, services, or funding that serve Indian Country from existing or future executive actions.

“Tribal Nations are sovereign governments with a unique legal and political relationship to the United States,” the letter states. “These trust and treaty obligations in some cases predate both the establishment of all of the agencies in question as well as the United States itself.”

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.