How you can show up for others

Immigration laws don’t always account for the unique legal status of Native peoples, especially those from tribal nations that cross international borders. Combine that with an increase in profiling and false immigration reports and arrests, and you find a whole lot of Native students who are grappling with continuing their education while dealing with citizenship issues at the same time.
Many Americans don’t realize that Native people weren’t granted citizenship until 1924 – even today, legal complexities affect how tribal sovereignty and federal rights interact. Policies still undermine tribal governance and limit Native students’ access to educational funding, creating additional barriers to success.

Any non-white person in the United States may be impacted by this order due to increased scrutiny and profiling by skin color. Additionally, anyone who is a US citizen by being born in the US to non-permanent US residents may find they are no longer citizens of the United States.

Native Americans find themselves under threat as some people argue their Tribal sovereignty means those on Tribal lands do not live in the United States, were not born in the United States, and therefore are not citizens of the United States.

Immigration laws don’t always account for the unique legal status of Native peoples, especially those from tribal nations that cross international borders. Combine that with an increase in profiling and false immigration reports and arrests, and you find a whole of Native students who are struggling to handle their education, and the law, at the same time.

Tribal ID Cards are more than just identification, they are a statement of sovereignty and legal recognition. However, recent changes to immigration policy make them so much more: a vital indication of your right to be on your homeland. Recently, some Native peoples have faced difficulties with immigrations officers who assume that they are illegal immigrants, with multiple going so far as to be deported to countries they’ve never been to.

That’s why it is imperative that you carry your Tribal ID at all times – when it comes to combatting profiling, sometimes the best offense is a good defense.

Connecting the Dots: Executive Orders are powerful tools that allow presidents to enact policy changes without congressional approval. For Native communities, this means funding for education, healthcare, and infrastructure can shift and even disappear overnight. Unlike laws enacted by Congress, citizens and our elected representatives are often unable to override these orders except through extreme coordinated action, undermining a check on the power of the executive branch.

From land use laws to education funding freezes, executive orders can directly and immediately impact Native communities. When EOs limit funding for Title I schools, Pell Grants, and Native education initiatives, Native students lose access to critical scholarships and academic resources, making it harder to graduate and enter the workforce.

It’s easy to hear about executive orders and think of them as abstract policy changes happening far away in Washington. But for Native communities, these decisions are anything but distant.

A single executive order can determine if Native families have access to clean water, if Native students can afford college, or if sacred lands are protected or opened for development. With the stroke of a pen, tribal sovereignty can be strengthened or weakened, and treaties – contractual agreements made generations ago – can be honored, eroded, or dismantled entirely.

The impact of executive orders isn’t theoretical. It’s not about signing a piece of paper for the cameras and handing out pens. It’s personal. It’s about whether Native languages continue to be spoken, whether Native-owned businesses can thrive, and whether future generations have the same opportunities as we do today. Policies may be written in legal jargon, but their consequences are written into the daily lives of Native people.

Here are just a couple of examples of how the executive orders passed affect real people across Indian Country:

Recent actions by the new White House administration show that funding for community-based organizations, higher education institutions, and rural programs are at risk of severe funding cuts or even elimination.

Any pause of a federal agency grant, loan, or other financial assistance program will harm not just Native American students attending tribal colleges and universities, but also many other community members attending these open enrollment institutions.

Although tribes created most tribal colleges to provide their tribal members with an affordable, accredited, culturally and community-based higher education, these institutions are open to everyone. TCUs are located in mostly remote, rural communities that are often underserved by higher education institutions. For many people living in rural communities, a tribal college education is not merely a convenient alternative to attending another college or university, it is the best and sometimes only choice for higher education due to their geographic proximity, affordability, and community focus.

All TCUs offer higher education opportunities designed to meet the workforce needs of their communities. The American Indian College Fund serves 35 accredited tribal colleges with 75 campuses located in 13 states in the Southwest, the Northwest, and across the Great Plains from Kansas and Oklahoma to Minnesota and the Dakotas—which serve a combined annual enrollment of nearly 22,000 students.

These remarkable and already seriously under-resourced institutions all offer trade certification and workforce education and associate degree programs. Many offer bachelor’s degree programs and a few offer master’s and Ph.D. programs.

Popular majors include business, health professions, construction technology, teaching, and the STEM fields (science, technology, education, and mathematics). Our graduates have gone on to serve as doctors, engineers, teachers, environmental scientists, construction workers, social workers, and more. Many have started their own businesses serving their communities and employing community members.

At a time when a competitive workforce is needed more than ever, contrasted with the rising cost of higher education, tribal colleges offer a real and rare value for their students, most of which are non-traditional students. Most TCU students have lower incomes and cannot afford to relocate to attend college for financial reasons or due to family responsibilities keeping them in their home communities. In addition, only 3% of TCU graduates took student loans as compared to 19% of students nationally, leaving them debt free as they pursue their preferred careers after graduation, according to a recent survey of TCU alumni conducted jointly by Gallup, the Strada Education Network, and the American Indian College Fund.

How is this possible? Most TCUs do not offer federal student loans to their students. Instead, many, like Tohono O’odham Community College in Arizona, lower the cost of tuition or subsidize tuition to support enrollment and to ensure students graduate without high student loan debt and with the credentials or degrees they need to enter their careers.

Scholarships from the American Indian College Fund, which are funded by individuals, foundations, and corporate donors, fill in the gaps and help cover the cost of books, supplies, room, board, and transportation. With this important support, our Full Circle scholars at TCUs graduate at almost two times the rate of Native students nationally.

Graduating debt-free has a positive impact on college graduates’ financial well-being. They can afford to enter the workforce in their own communities, creating greater economic wellbeing in the process. In fact, 74% of tribal college alumni surveyed by Gallup are using their tribal college education in their careers to do just that. In addition, TCU graduates are nearly twice as likely as college graduates nationwide to report they are thriving financially, socially, and at work. Nearly 60 percent of TCU alumni say their schools were “perfect” for them, while nearly 70 percent agree their education was worth the cost—opposed to 39% of college graduates nationally.

TCUs are small but mighty pipelines to a better future, offering excellent value for students, community members, and taxpayers.

Native Nations and rural America cannot afford to lose the economic, educational, and cultural opportunities TCUs offer. Our communities need the skills and talents of tribal college graduates. And deserving students need the opportunities a TCU education provides them to access a better life.

Our nation cannot afford to throw away talent. Our nation’s competitiveness, economic stability, and very future depend on education—for all its people.

Connecting the Dots:

Proposed changes to the educational system will affect everyone, but it can be difficult to see how it will impact Native students specifically. While many communities will lose schools, Native communities will lose so much more if TCUS are shuttered.

That is because TCUS are more than schools, they are lifelines. They provide affordable, culturally relevant education, serve as community hubs, cultural preservation centers, daycare providers, and job creators. As a result, losing access to a TCU means more than losing access to education, but also means losing a vital source of daily community support and employment, and even losing your two-thousand-year-old language.

Education is a treaty right. In most tribal treaties with the United States government, support for educational programs on Indian land is guaranteed. Removing funding from TCUs is not just a bad move, it is a morally reprehensible reversal of promises made – in some cases hundreds of years ago.