Members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians can get free tribal IDs until the end of February, Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben announced. The move comes at a time of rising concern over the Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants, with some tribal members fearing they could be swept up in the fervor to root out undocumented people despite being citizens and members of a federally recognized tribe.
President Donald Trump’s executive order attempting to roll back constitutional guarantees of birthright citizenship has contributed to those fears because of the country’s history of not recognizing members of tribes as citizens. Though the order is targeted at children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants, some fear broader implications.
MBCI Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben sent a letter to members of the tribe on Jan. 27.
“I am writing to you in light of the concerns many of you have expressed regarding the recent executive orders and actions taken by the federal government, particularly regarding birthright citizenship,” he wrote. “I want to assure you that the executive order issued by the Trump administration regarding birthright citizenship does not impact our status as United States citizens.”
He announced the free tribal IDs in a statement on the tribe’s official Facebook page the next day.
“The usual fees associated with the Tribal ID application and any supporting MBCI documentation fees such as enrollment paperwork will be waived one time per tribal member in the month of February,” the Jan. 28 announcement said, directing members to www.Choctaw.org/Documents to print the document or fill it out online. The waiver ends on Feb. 28.
While the elderly and veterans are already exempt from normal processing fees, this announcement waives fees to ensure that all tribal members have easier access to obtaining or renewing their tribal identification.
Reports of members of another tribe getting caught up amid the immigration raids began not long after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The Arizona Mirror reported on Jan. 24 about a Navajo Nation council meeting in which members raised concerns about Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents targeting Navajo people.
“We now know that Navajo people and enrolled members of other tribes are being detained in Phoenix and other cities by ICE,” the Mirror reported Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley saying during a meeting. “The reports that we have received indicate that we need to coordinate an operation or some type of response to help our enrolled tribal members here on the Navajo Nation.”
Soon, tribal leaders throughout the U.S. began responding to the threat of ICE raids and executive orders through issuing statements, including Ben.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed House Bill 277 into law in 2021, making tribal IDs a legal form of identification in the state. Ben was present for the ceremonial signing of the bill that year, the Neshoba Democrat reported.
Congress ratified the 14th Amendment in 1868 to guarantee citizenship to Black people who were born into slavery. But Native Americans who were born on reservations continued to be excluded from citizenship, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Elk v. Wilkins in 1884 that a Winnebago man could not vote because he was born on an Indian reservation which the court saw as an “alien nation.”
The U.S. Department of Justice invoked the Elks case as attorneys defended Trump’s executive order attempting to revoke birthright citizenship. They cited the 1884 case while arguing that “birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship, the person must also be ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States,” the Associated Press reported.
Those arguments further elevated fears among some of the nation’s Indigenous population.
“The DOJ’s legal argument was not that Native Americans are not presently United States Citizens,” Ben said in his Jan. 27 letter to members of the MCBI. “In fact, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which declares that Native Americans born within the United States are citizens of the United States.”
“While the legal argument that brought Native Americans into the fold did not acknowledge the present status of Native American citizenship,” he continued, “the DOJ was using the language in the Elk case to defend the language of the Executive Order and not to imply Native American citizenship was being questioned or is in jeopardy. However, carrying your State issued Identification Card, Tribal Identification Card, or CDIB with you at all times is always a safe and proactive measure as it ensures your proof of identity.”
The chief said he would continue communicating with local, state and federal leaders and would “continue to defend our rights as members of a sovereign nation and urge the United States Government to honor its trust and treaty responsibilities.”
Four federal judges have issued rulings blocking Trump’s executive order attempting to roll back birthright citizenship into taking effect.
In Mississippi, some members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians worked alongside Hispanic workers who were targeted in the first Trump administration’s mass ICE raids on poultry plants in the state in 2019.
The Hispanic community in east central Mississippi is still dealing with the aftermath of those raids half a decade later.
Ben is in his second term as MBCI chief and is the tribe’s fifth democratically elected chief since the tribe reorganized and gained recognition in 1945.
