Ex-members dispute disenrollment

The Squaxin Island Tribe has recently disenrolled numerous members and plans to remove more, according to several people who spoke with the Journal about their experience.

The former members said they were given 30 days to provide documentation to the Tribal Council.

“We feel it’s a very unfair process,” said Jack Selvidge, who was recently disenrolled.

Selvidge is working on getting documents about his grandmother’s land holdings from Washington, D.C., something that takes longer than 30 days, he said.

“A lot of these records are no longer in existence,” Selvidge said.

His grandmother acquired her land through an Indian allotment.

“I can’t prove that through local records,” Selvidge said, “but she’s on all the roles.”

When contacted by the Journal, the Squaxin Island Tribe wrote in a statement that tribal matters are private.

“This is a matter of self-governance. Individual tribal member information is confidential. The Tribe has criteria for enrollment. This criteria is listed in our constitution. Affected tribal members have the right to present information to show they meet the criteria and challenge any decision to end enrollment in Tribal Court,” Ray Peters, a tribal representative, said in the statement.

The Squaxin tribe also gave Jamie Queen 30 days to come up with required proof she’s a tribal member, Queen told the Journal in an email.

“We found out Feb. 1st from a cousin from another tribe who sent me a message stating that the Sherwood line is being excluded. Within 30 days we had to schedule a meeting with enrollment that lasted 30 minutes to look at our family file and we couldn’t get copies of our paperwork from the tribe. Then within that 30 days we had to have a hearing which we had to turn in evidence seven days prior so the enrollment committee could review it,” Queen wrote.

She said she has direct descendancy but only one family member was allotted land.

“In our family tree we are related both on my grandmother’s side and my grandfather’s. This isn’t about blood quantum, it’s about the allotted land that was given to one family member and not the other because one died. Both sisters are Squaxin and the 1800 census as well stated their mom was Squaxin as well, but because they passed they don’t count?” Queen wrote.

The Squaxin has several eligibility enrollment criteria, according to the tribe’s enrollment ordinance. One is being an “original Squaxin Island Allottee or direct lineal descendant of an original Squaxin Island Allotee,” the criteria states, and lists more than 30 names of original allotees.

“Evidence of direct lineal descendancy from an original Squaxin Island Allotee shall be required for enrollment,” according to the enrollment document posted on the tribe’s website.

A “drafting comment” on the document states, “Persons asserting that he or she is entitled to be enrolled as a direct lineal descendent of an allottee should show a family tree and his or her descent from an allottee through either his or her mother or father for each generation back to the allottee.”

Selvidge said the tribe posthumously disenrolled his grandmother, who died in 1929.

“An ancestor!” he exclaimed.

His great-grandmother, Mary F. Brown, had nine children. “Every one of them were taken away from their parents by the government and sent to Indian reeducation schools,” Selvidge said.

“Blood quantum,” also used by the Squaxin as membership criteria, is the amount of “Indian blood” a member possesses. The Squaxin ordinance states, “A person of one eighth degree or more Indian blood born to any member of the Squaxin Island Tribe after July 8, 1965, the date of approval of the Tribe’s constitution,” is approved for membership.

“As you go along in generations, your blood quantum is going to be smaller,” Selvidge said.

“My family has lived on Kamilche Point since the 1870s. We have the tax statement that goes back to 1871. We have documentation that shows the family, how much Indian they were,” he said.

“My mother was the last one who could be legally enrolled, directly from her inherited side,” because of blood quantum, according to Selvidge.

“That made me personally a sixteenth, and they accepted it. They said OK you can be enrolled,” he said.

When asked why he thought a council would remove multiple members who have lived, in some cases for generations, as part of the Squaxin Island Tribe Selvidge replied, “Greed. It’s just straight up greed.”

The Squaxin adopted its constitution in 1965. This formalized its membership criteria, among other matters. An official tribal role was required to secure federal money from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other federal agencies.

It was beneficial for the Squaxin to enroll lots of members, according to Selvidge.

“They used the soon-to-be-disenrolled members as a basis to receive funding from the U.S. government for infrastructure. They used tax dollars to pay for sewer, roads, housing, medical clinic, education and other structures. Now they will be denying the very ones they used for the funding basis the right to access the very infrastructure and services that was obtained by counting them as tribal members,” he said.

Then he discussed casino profits.

The Squaxin own Little Creek Casino Resort in Kamilche.

According to RocketReach, a data broker website, the casino’s annual revenue in 2024 was $185.3 million. The site doesn’t state if that number also includes hotel and restaurant revenue associated with the casino and the figure can’t be independently verified.

Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, tribes must report gambling revenue. Unlike commercial casinos, the information isn’t public.

Like other Native American tribes with gambling facilities, the Squaxin collect substantial gambling revenues and pass some of that on to their members. The IGRA states net gambling revenue must be used for one or more of the following purposes: tribal government operations and programs, general welfare of the Tribe and its members, economic development, charitable donations and per capita payments to tribal members.

Selvidge said his per capita check, which all Squaxin members receive, stopped as soon as he was disenrolled. He also lost a senior stipend.

“It was a significant part of my retirement,” he said. Selvidge said he’ll be fine without the money, “It’s just the injustice of the whole thing.”

Queen wrote the removal “places undue stress on affected individuals, particularly elders, vulnerable adults, and children in Indian Child Welfare (ICW) programs.”

Disenrolled members living on the Squaxin reservation have to move, she wrote.

“This same council is ready to disinherit, to cut off their benefits, slapping them with an ultimatum of six months to pack up and move. Are you kidding me? Where’s the sense of duty towards our people? Where’s the aid to help them navigate through the bureaucratic meshes of government benefits and Social Security? Think about the psychological toll on these folks; it’s not just about losing financial aid, it’s also about losing their very identity, their lineage,” Queen wrote.

Selvidge and Queen said it’s hard to get an accurate count of the number of disenrolled members, or members who have received disenrollment notices.

Both said the number of disenrolled is around 100 so far. Selvidge said he’s heard another 400 to 600 members are set to receive 30-day notices.

“They won’t tell you,” Selvidge said, referring to the Squaxin Island Tribal Council.

The Squaxin tribe has 1,022 enrolled members, according to a 2010 census.

David Wilkins is a citizen of the Lumbee Nation and holds the McKnight Presidential Professorship in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota.

He’s been studying disenrollment since 1991 and wrote a book with his wife, Shelly Hulse Wilkins, called “Dismembered: Native Disenrollment and the Battle for Human Rights,” in 2017.

Wilkins told the Journal tribes have different reasons for disenrolling or banishing members, which are different actions.

“Issues involving crime, malfeasance, things like that, generally lead to banishment, which is just a physical exclusion,” he said. “It doesn’t mean disenrollment.”

Disenrollment is a formal, legal and political termination of a Native citizen’s rights.

In California, gambling has been the dominant reason for tribal disenrollment, Wilkins said. With per capita distribution, the fewer members, the more money, he said. While writing the book, Wilkins said one disenrolled member showed him evidence her tribe wanted to cut membership rolls for economic reasons.

“What she showed me quite clearly with the paperwork was that the tribe had did the economic calculations, that by disenrolling X number of members, the remaining members per capita for the checks would be increased this much,” he said.

“In other tribes it’s not gaming, it’s blood quantum issues,” he said.

“What we learned in doing the book was tribal officials, when they want a person, or family, or group of individuals out, will manipulate the facts to fit the situation. If membership required a quarter blood, member proves they have that amount, officials will then change the amount required for membership again. That happens quite often in disenrollment cases,” Wilkins said.

“Tribes have created a bevy of arguments that they can use when they want someone out and they will slide back and forth” he said. “When the member can actually prove what the tribe says they want to be proved, they then shift the criteria,” according to Wilkins.

Selvidge and Queen both said this has happened with the Squaxin.

Under the old Squaxin constitution, Selvidge’s blood quantum was acceptable, he said.

“But now they’ve changed the constitution and it’s not acceptable. And they can kick you out,” according to Selvidge.

Queen said the council is rewriting the constitution for their own ends.

“The past council, the pillars of our tribe, discerned our constitution with precision, clarity, and a hefty dose of decades-long experience. Now, we’re entrusting this task to a fleet of novices playing by an entirely different book,” Queen wrote.

“Our constitution is not a plaything, it’s the sacred groundwork that defines us,” she stated.

If a tribe does change their constitution to satisfy a council’s agenda, members have little recourse. Disenrolled tribal members have few options, according to Wilkins.

Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case, ruled federal courts lack jurisdiction for a tribal disenrollment issue. Because of the decision, most federal courts won’t accept disenrollment cases, Wilkins said.

“The Supreme Court basically said tribal membership decisions are a choice, a decision, made by the tribal nation and we must, outsiders must, respect the tribe’s decision,” according to Wilkins.

“That essentially leaves disenrollees without any recourse outside of their own tribal court system,” he said. “It’s a very difficult situation.”

Squaxin Island members receiving disenrollment notices met March 7 to discuss what’s next. Selvidge said they hope to “slow the process down” before a general body meeting of the tribe May 3. According to Selvidge, members at the meeting could slow or stop the disenrollments with a 30% vote. The catch is, he said, only enrolled members can vote.