EXHIBIT A Full Time Navajo Residents of the Hopi Estimates The BIA estimates that there are 239 remaining full-time resident Navajo households on the Hopi Partitioned Lands (HPL). The Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation Commission currently estimates that there are at least 300 remaining full-time resident Navajo households on the HPL. The Navajo Nation has enumerated 828 full-time resident Navajo households on the HPL. There are several reasons for the large differences between the Navajo Tribe's, the BIA's and the Relocation Commission's estimates for the number of Navajo families who still reside on the HPL. Since January of this year, the Navajo Nation has been attempting to work with the BIA and the Relocation Commission to provide a more accurate accounting of the families who remain on the HPL. A major reason for the Navajo Nation's difference with the Phoenix Area BIA's number is that, until last October, the responsibility of the BIA staff working on the Hopi Partitioned Land was confined to issuing grazing permits, reducing livestock and restoring the range on the HPL. The office's files accumulated over the years reflect this rather focused mandate. Staff members within the office are natural resource managers, not social scientists or planners. HPL grazing permittees tend to be either the matriarchs or patriarchs of an extended family group. Over the years since 1974, the children of these senior heads of household have themselves grown up and begun their own families. Under the 1974 Act these HPL residents qualify for relocation benefits. These subfamilies many times live with their parents on the HPL in overcrowded housing due to the construction freeze. Other members of such an extended family may have temporarily left the HPL to relieve the overcrowding or to pursue educational and job opportunities in nearby towns. These Navajo subfamilies return to their HPL homes on a regular basis. Many share the livestock responsibilities with their elderly parents. This is a common practice within Navajo extended families. What is counted as one family by the BIA is often an extended family containing several nuclear families. Using only the 239 number will simply transfer the current overcrowded housing conditions on the HPL to similar overcrowding on the New Lands. There is another group of families who the BIA does not count at all. These are Navajo families with whom the BIA has had no contact over the years because these families are not involved with grazing activities. These additional EXHIBIT A families are not included in the BIA's count of 239 remaining full-time resident families on the HPL. The Relocation Commission numbers also reflect its mandate over the years and the accumulation of files which reflect that mandate. Commission staff describe their office as a "housing authority" in which household heads are first certified eligible for relocation benefits and then eventually moved into relocation homes. Commissioner Watkins recently testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee that "the Commission currently estimates approximately 300 Navajo heads of household still residing on the HPL." It is important to recognize that the Commission's 300 figure does not include all of the 239 resident household heads reported by the BIA. According to the latest information available to the Navajo Nation, the Relocation Commission recognizes 44 household heads as full-time residents who are unknown to the BIA. Conversely, the BIA recognizes 22 household heads as full-time residents who are unknown to the Relocation Commission. The Commission's count of 300 resident household heads does not include any of the 1,672 applicants for certification who have been denied by the Commission. Statistics compiled by the Navajo Nation's Navajo-Hopi Legal Service Program, whose staff have appealed a large number of these denials, show a 25 per cent reversal rate on appeal. We believe that many of these families are currently residing on the HPL. The Commission's estimate of current residents also does not include any families who have never applied for relocation benefits. The Commission usually estimates that 70 families have never applied. Tribal field work over the past several months has found 116 discernible families and single emancipated adults who have never applied for benefits but who are full-time residents of the HPL. In addition, as with the BIA's figure, the Commission is mainly counting only the certified heads of extended Navajo families. Not included in the Commission's total are the subfamilies within the extended families. The final reason the Navajo Nation is certain the Relocation Commission's current estimate of resident household heads is an understatement is because we have frequently found Commission records to be out-dated. We have verified instances in which a certified household head's current "agency status code" is based on a single interview between that person and a Commission staff member several years ago. Many changes occur within an extended family over the course of time, but rarely are these family dynamics recorded and reflected within the Relocation Commission's current files. EXHIBIT A Both the BIA's and the Relocation Commission's enumerations are based on very client-specific data bases. To use these numbers, either separately or in conjunction with each other, as the basis of a purported full enumeration of Navajo residents of the HPL is misleading. Neither data base is complete. The Navajo Nation is continuing its cross-checking of Relocation Commission and BIA records with Tribal family records and field work. We have counted to date 1,130 adults in 828 discernible households who we believe are full-time residents of the HPL or who return regularly to their homes on the HPL and thus have resident status. The total Navajo population, including children, on the HPL is 1,655 persons. Attached to this statement is a tally sheet showing our breakdown of these people into various mutually exclusive categories within the Chapter communities of the HPL. Every number on this sheet represents an identifiable person, and for every number the Navajo Nation has a name and census number. EXHIBIT B RESPONSE OF THE NAVAJO NATION TO CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES Assistant Secretary Swimmer's statement, without presenting any legal analysis, threatens that H.R.4281 may be unconstitutional. Several possible theories are named, but the applicability of these theories to H.R. 4281 is unclear. The first suggested problem relates to whether the land exchange can be characterized as a taking. In advancing noncompensable act of congressional guardianship or a taking The principles of decision announced in Sioux Nation and the striking dissimilarity between the legislative action characterized as a taking in Sioux Nation and the action proposed by H.R.4281 provide ample support for the firm conclusion that H.R. 4281 constitutes an exercise of Congress' trusteeship authority over Indian affairs and not a taking requiring just compensation. This conclusion can be better understood after detailed consideration of the Sioux Nation decision. |