Congress should override Supreme Court on tribal border security

-- Border security is the new mantra for modern-day bigotry. It provides the talking point for the excesses of the senseless Sensenbrenner - King Immigration Bill, which calls for a 700-mile fence between the United States and Mexico (but not Canada).

It gives enemies of the tribes a respectable label for dishonest attacks on reservation self-government. So let's throw down a challenge to all the Lou Dobbs-style talking heads on television. If you are really concerned about effective policing of the nation's frontiers, restore to the Indian tribes on the border the authority to make their contribution.

Some 50 tribal sovereignties lie within 100 miles of the northern or southern borders. They are ready and willing to back up national security with skills that the U.S. Border Patrol acknowledges are indispensable.

The Tohono O'odham Nation fields the Grey Wolves, an internationally famous corps of trackers, which has served on the Mexican border and in the Balkans. The St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police force of 15 officers devotes 50 percent of its time to border enforcement in northern New York - 80 percent in the winter when the St. Lawrence River is frozen over. But the U.S. Supreme Court has tied the hands of tribal law enforcement with an irrational and completely unjustified legal principle.

Tribes are not allowed to enforce criminal law against non-Indians. This is what the Supreme Court has held since the 1978 case of Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (435 U.S. 191).

This notorious case has contributed enormously to the difficulties of law enforcement on the reservation. It has been a major factor in the spread of methamphetamine marketing, not to mention sexual abuse and domestic violence. Now it is hindering the tribal contribution to border enforcement. If U.S. Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairs of the crucial law enforcement committees in the House of Representatives, are really serious about border security, they should be leading a congressional drive to override the Oliphant holding. --