Parents living on the Northern Ute reservation are coaching their children to memorize their tribal ID numbers in case they are stopped by immigration officers. Some say they are even using marker to write their phone numbers on their kids’ arms before sending them to school.
Many say they are scared to leave reservation lands — and even their homes.
Under President Donald Trump’s administration, heightened U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns have sent a wave of anxiety over the sovereign tribal nation in Utah’s northeast corner and others across the country, where Indigenous citizens feel they could be profiled.
“I’m scared for any tribal member now due to the color of their skin,” said one enrolled member of the Ute Indian Tribe who lives on the Uinta Basin reservation.
The Salt Lake Tribune agreed not to name the 33-year-old woman because she said she fears being targeted. She said she has heard ICE officers have been patrolling the small towns that sit both in and just outside of the reservation. The Tribune verified her age and identity.
She said she worries especially for her 9-year-old son; the Ute Tribe’s ancestry threshold that allows people to be officially enrolled members is the highest for any tribe in the country, and while she meets it, he does not.
She has had him memorize her phone number, but he doesn’t have a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood or a tribal ID card, like other Ute kids whose parents, she said, are having them carry them on their person in the event they are stopped.
He is Native American and a U.S. citizen, but she is concerned that won’t matter if ICE comes to his school, which is no longer protected as a “sensitive area” under loosened enforcement restrictions enacted the day Trump took office. She also doesn’t want to take him to Salt Lake City either, which she often visits, because she is worried they might be targeted — and possibly separated.
“That part scares me the most,” she said. “I started carrying his birth certificate along with my tribal ID and my state ID to prove that he is mine and I am his mother.”
Tribal nations including the Ute Indian Tribe have sent out warnings to their citizens to now carry their tribal IDs with them at all times after reports of ICE officers questioning some Navajo, or Diné, citizens in Arizona and New Mexico.
At the end of January, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in a statement that his office had received reports of tribal members having “negative, and sometimes traumatizing, experiences with federal agents targeting undocumented immigrants in the Southwest.”
Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley told CNN that had happened to at least 15 Indigenous people in the region. While they were questioned, a spokesperson for the Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President told The Tribune it appears all were let go, with none arrested or detained.
The ICE office in Salt Lake City did not respond to a request for comment.
The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the country, with land in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Clarence Rockwell, the executive director of the Navajo Utah Commission, said he hasn’t seen or heard of ICE activity on the Utah side. But fears are running high.
“The concern is out there,” he said. “A lot of our people have relatives in Arizona and New Mexico. They hear from other areas. There’s a lot of stuff being shared on social media.”
Many have said they are frustrated that Native citizens are being questioned at all, as they were the first to live on this land.
“Why should any of us be questioned of who we are and where we come from when this is rightfully our homeland?” the 33-year-old Ute woman asked.
“I feel like people need to remember we were established here before Brigham Young came along,” she added, about Utah’s tribes.
Why is this happening to Indigenous peoples?
At the heart of enforcement concerns for Native peoples is Trump’s recent executive order to overturn birthright citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.
A federal judge has blocked any action on that, for now, with a preliminary injunction. But the issue has caused alarm among Indigenous Americans, in particular, because Trump’s lawyers cited an 1884 U.S. Supreme Court case denying citizenship to members of tribes.
That ruling said: “Birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship.”
Congress later granted citizenship to Native Americans in 1924, which is why Trump argues citizenship is not a guarantee but something given. Tribal leaders are becoming increasingly reticent to trust the law will stand.
“It has never really been an issue until now,” said Jasanna R. Cuch, another member of the Ute Tribe.
Cuch, 49, echoed what many tribal members have been saying: That this feels like another attempt to take rights away from Native Americans, following centuries of historic mistreatment.
She said she knows a young boy who was questioned by ICE officers in Roosevelt, which sits inside the Uintah and Ouray Reservation — the second largest in the country, by land size. ICE can technically go onto tribal lands, even though the nations are sovereign.
Nothing happened, and he was let go, she said, after giving his tribal ID number.
The attorney who comments for the Ute Tribe could not be reached for more information about alleged ICE activity near the tribe’s lands. But the tribe’s governing Business Committee sent out a letter to enrolled Ute members at the end of January, pledging to defend anyone stopped by an agent.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ute Indian Tribe Chairman Julius Murray in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.
“The Business Committee is here to protect you,” the notice said. “We will provide legal counsel and support to any tribal member who is improperly detained or questioned.”
Echoing others, Cuch said she believes tribal members are being racially profiled.
On the Ute reservation specifically, she wonders, too, if immigration officials may also be trying to get at the large number of Latino immigrants who work in the tribe’s oil operations. Those would not be able to run, she said, without those employees.
The tribe itself also has seen its numbers dwindle in recent years because of its high five-eighths blood quantum requirement. That means many children, like the son of the woman who spoke to The Tribune, don’t meet the threshold. Cuch is afraid there might be an effort to target those individuals if they can’t prove they were born here.
Even members who are enrolled don’t often carry their IDs, Cuch said, unless they are leaving the reservation. And some don’t have them.
“I know a lot of our people don’t carry proper identification,” Rockwell added about the Navajo Nation.
Native elders, in particular, can have a hard time getting a U.S. ID, having to prove where they were born, often in a remote area. The requests for tribal IDs have overwhelmed some tribal offices, saying they can’t keep up with new demand.
Speaker Curley also questioned whether ICE agents would recognize a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood as a valid proof of citizenship.
She added to CNN: “I think there’s a confusion with other races, maybe just because having a brown skin, automatically being profiled or stereotyped to be in a certain group of race.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Crystalyne Curley, speaker for Navajo Nation Council, speaks during a news conference at the Utah Capitol, on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023.
Utah tribes weigh in, advise members
Davina Smith, a member of the Navajo Nation who lives in Utah’s San Juan County, keeps her IDs with her at all times. And now, she is encouraging her family — particularly in more urban areas — to do so.
“It’s concerning and frustrating that we’re having to deal with this,” she said. “In this stage, in this era, in this century, it’s ridiculous.”
Smith, a former candidate for the Utah House, called on the state’s lawmakers to advocate for Native residents and stand against federal ICE enforcement.
“We are their constituents,” she said.
The Legislature hasn’t taken up anything on Indigenous citizenship rights this session, but a bill is moving forward that would help ICE deport some undocumented immigrants.
That comes after Republican Gov. Spencer Cox announced in November that the state would work to support Trump’s deportation demands. At the time, he said, Utah would have “zero tolerance” for “those who demonstrate a threat to public safety while in the country illegally.”
Meanwhile, tribal nations across the state have put out statements in support of their members and giving them advice for responding to ICE agents, if they are questioned.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Davina Smith speaks as Native Americans and their supporters gather on the steps of the Utah Capitol for a rally to oppose a resolution that would discourage the removal of Native American names or symbols from school mascots, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020.
The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah said, “It is our priority to ensure the safety of all our tribal members.” The tribe advised, like others, for Native residents to:
• Ensure their state and tribal IDs are up to date.
• Always carry their identification with them.
• Remain calm, if stopped by a federal agent, and ask for the officer’s identification to verify they are legitimate.
• Not flee or resist, if arrested.
• Remain silent and contact an attorney, as well as the tribe.
“The tribe will assist you in securing legal counsel,” the notice said, including contacts for each tribal chairperson. “Our legal team will actively work to defend your rights and interests.”
Navajo Nation officials, similarly, added that those stopped should try to document the encounter and ask to see warrants before allowing any agents to enter a residence. They are advising that tribal members contact Operation Rainbow Bridge, a tribal resource, at 855-435-7672 or the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission at 928-871-7436.
The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe echoed that, warning residents to keep their doors closed.
The Ute Tribe Education Department also sent out a notice to tribal members at the end of January saying it hasn’t documented any immigration enforcement at schools in the Uinta Basin. But they are warning parents, under Trump’s administration, that it is possible.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
“Parents/guardians, please call the schools and update your information for emergency contacts,” the letter states. “This information is essential for schools in case of an emergency.”
Both of the school districts that cover the reservation — the Uintah School District and the Duchesne County School District — sent letters to parents noting that they don’t collect student immigration status and that all children are welcome.
“Since we do not gather this information, it is not something we can provide to any law enforcement agency,” Duchesne school officials wrote.
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, which sits in Colorado but has historic Utah ties, criticized Trump in a statement for presenting “significant challenges for Native American tribes concerning their citizenship rights — especially for those born in the United States.”
“The Ute people have inhabited this land for thousands of years,” the statement continued, “and have been recognized as U.S. citizens since 1924.”
