Published Aug 24, 2023 “We are here today to reaffirm the Justice Department’s commitment to working across the federal government and with the Alaska Native communities to meet these urgent challenges,” he said.
Garland backed up that commitment with a $22 million grant to the Alaska Native Justice Center to help tribes build a foundation for stronger public safety and justice systems. The federal funding was carved out of a total of $70 million in funding for American Indian and Alaska Native tribes to provide support services for Native victims of crime. The money, which comes from the Tribal Victims Services Set-Aside program, will go to 67 tribal communities in Alaska.
Alex Cleghorn, an attorney who is the Justice Center’s chief operating officer, said the money will allow tribes to implement the Alaska Tribal Public Safety Empowerment Act, which was inserted into the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women’s Act, known as VAWA 22.
“So what VAWA 22 does so nicely is it is an Alaska specific response to an Alaska specific problem,” he said.
And that problem is the question of whether the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act did away tribal sovereignty and Indian Country.
“What VAWA 22 does is it takes the definition of village from ANCSA and defines a territory,” said Cleghorn.
Michelle Demmert, a longtime tribal court judge, said there is a lot at stake for Alaska Natives.
“Alaska tribes have not gotten the same resources across the board when it comes to essential governmental services and it’s time for them to pony up,” Demmert said.
Demmert is a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she is the commissioner of the university’s “Not Invisible” tribal governance program. She called the meeting groundbreaking, because Garland acknowledged Alaska tribes as democratic institutions, their need for support and their importance to the nation.
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