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Deb Haaland says her tenure leading the Department of the Interior has brought historic change to Indian country, including billions in federal money for tribes for everything from water to improved public safety. It's not clear how the new Trump administration will work with tribes and tribal lands, but NPR's Kirk Siegler looks at what Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary, leaves behind.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: At a farewell speech in Washington this week, Interior Secretary Haaland reflected on President Biden's recent formal apology for the U.S. government's historic assimilation policies and its Indian boarding schools. Starting in the 1800s, children were separated from families - some abused or worse.
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SIEGLER: She spoke about going with the president to one of the most notorious boarding schools in Carlisle, Pennsylvania - now a national monument.
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DEB HAALAND: As I stood next to the president, I felt the power of our ancestors who persevered through unthinkable odds so that we could all be there that day.
SIEGLER: Haaland's grandparents and her mother were sent away - a trauma she brought up in an interview with me just before the November election. Haaland says her Road to Healing tour across Indian country was a turning point.
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HAALAND: It's an important piece of our history that every single American should know about. It's a painful part of our history.
SIEGLER: Tribes had huge expectations for Haaland. She pushed to bring them to the table on all lands decisions and to right a legacy of historic wrongs in Indian country, like broken treaties.
ROBERT MAXIM: People can't unlearn this history now. My worry is that, you know, we're not going to act fast enough to, you know, continue responding to the ongoing consequences today.
SIEGLER: Robert Maxim is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and a Brookings Institution fellow. He wrote a congressionally funded report after the election, warning that it's likely now up to states to continue with Haaland's reforms.
MAXIM: And I'm basing, really, a lot of that on the record of the first Trump administration.
SIEGLER: Maxim worries the next Trump administration will slow-walk the creation of monuments and protected lands and cut funding for programs like Head Start. But on the other hand, he says, Haaland's likely successor, former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, has close relationships with tribes. And a push for more oil and gas drilling on federal and tribal land is certain under the new administration. Haaland made conservation a hallmark of her tenure.
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HAALAND: I think, in this era of this really terrible climate crisis, that those are considerations that need to be made when we're managing our public lands.
SIEGLER: The secretary says she's proud of her work making tribal consultation a priority on every decision. But this is where things could get a little thorny when it comes to her legacy. Tribes in Nevada blame Haaland for not intervening to do more to stop lithium mines approved on land they consider sacred, and there are gaming matters between tribes that still have hard feelings. On the West Coast, some are angry over a late-hour decision allowing some tribes to open casinos off their reservations.
CARLA KEENE: When she became secretary, I was very, very excited, and that went away very quickly.
SIEGLER: Carla Keene is chair of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians, which sued the Interior Department over its approval of another tribe's off-reservation casino near Medford, Oregon. Keene worries it will compete with her tribe's casino that funds essential services.
KEENE: And I wish that she would have came out and visited our homelands when she was invited. And I wish that she would have taken the time to learn about our tribes and not been so afraid of somebody being mad at her.
SIEGLER: The department didn't respond to a request for comment on this. Secretary Haaland did tell me there's always someone disagreeing with how she leads an agency that controls 20% of America's land. And zooming out, activists in Indian country generally revere Haaland for respecting their history - a change they say will be hard for any future administration to undo.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News.
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