Officials from the Navajo Nation are warning its members to carry personal identification that indicates they are citizens of the United States at all times following reports that more than a dozen Diné/Navajo people have been detained and questioned during immigration raids in Arizona and New Mexico since last Wednesday.
Navajo people, also known as Diné people, have experienced “negative and sometimes traumatizing experiences with federal agents targeting undocumented immigrants in the Southwest,” Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in a press release.
The exact number of Diné/Navajo Nation members who have been detained is unknown, but there have been at least 15 documented cases of people being stopped at their homes or workplaces over the past week, CNN reported on Monday. These individuals were questioned or detained by federal law enforcement, who demanded they provide proof of citizenship.
It’s unclear which federal agency or agencies detained these individuals. They have since been released, but the detentions have made residents worry that future Trump administration immigration raids could target them, despite their status as citizens.
In one incident, a person was detained by federal agents during a raid in Phoenix, Arizona, with a Navajo official describing their situation as a “wrong place, wrong time” situation. That person was released upon providing officials with tribal identification, but only after they were detained and questioned.
Arizona state Sen. Theresa Hatathlie noted that several reports indicated that federal agents didn’t recognize tribal identification as valid proof of citizenship.
“With the way things are going right now and these types of situations, we have to put measures in place in order to help our constituents and government entities so that they can be a resource,” Hatahlie told CNN.
She added:
Tribes should communicate to Homeland Security and say, ‘This is a sample of our travel enrollment card. This is the sample of our Certificate of Indian Blood. If you have any questions to verify, here is a hotline. Here is a website.’
According to a press release from his office, Nygren is advising Diné/Navajos people “to carry state-issued identification, such as a driver’s license, other picture identification, or their Certificate of Indian blood, known as a CIB.”
That Indigenous people have been detained is a show of the widespread and seemingly racially targeted nature of the raids.
“There’s a lot of fear, and I know they’re probably feeling frustrated knowing that they don’t feel safe in the country where they were born or where their ancestors come from and there’s a lot of frustration of them being stereotyped,” said Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley.
Those who were questioned or detained felt that “they have been racially discriminated and also profiled,” Curly said, adding that “many fear for the threat of being deported.”
Diné elder and activist James Jackson, also speaking to CNN, described the actions as “shameful,” and decried the raids by the federal government overall.
“No one is illegal on stolen land,” Jackson said. “It really goes back to the Indigenous way of life, that everything is made for the people. People have to understand that this is not the way to live or to be honorable and neighborly with each other.”
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