To establish a connection to the newly acquired lands for purposes of § 292.11, the tribe must meet the criteria in this section.
(a) The newly acquired lands must be located within the State or States where the tribe is now located, as evidenced by the tribe's governmental presence and tribal population, and the tribe must demonstrate one or more of the following modern connections to the land:
(1) The land is within reasonable commuting distance of the tribe's existing reservation;
(2) If the tribe has no reservation, the land is near where a significant number of tribal members reside;
(3) The land is within a 25-mile radius of the tribe's headquarters or other tribal governmental facilities that have existed at that location for at least 2 years at the time of the application for land-into-trust; or
(4) Other factors demonstrate the tribe's current connection to the land.
(b) The tribe must demonstrate a significant historical connection to the land.
(c) The tribe must demonstrate a temporal connection between the date of the acquisition of the land and the date of the tribe's restoration. To demonstrate this connection, the tribe must be able to show that either:
(1) The land is included in the tribe's first request for newly acquired lands since the tribe was restored to Federal recognition; or
(2) The tribe submitted an application to take the land into trust within 25 years after the tribe was restored to Federal recognition and the tribe is not gaming on other lands.
Notes of Decisions
Butte Cnty., Cal. v. Hogen, 613 F.3d 190 (D.C. Cir. 2010).
· cites it 2× “" 25 C.F.R. § 292.12 (b). [1] The Mechoopda Tribe had approximately 400 enrolled members when this case began.”
Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation v. DOI, 3 F.4th 427 (D.C. Cir. 2021).
· cites it 2× “Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation (“Yocha Dehe”) is a federally recognized Indian tribe “comprised of the descendants of Patwin people native to the Northeastern San Francisco Bay Area and the lower Sacramento River Valley, an area of California that includes .”
Rancheria v. Salazar, 881 F. Supp. 2d 1104 (N.D. Cal. 2012).
“Therefore, the Parcels were not “included in the [T]ribe’s first requests for newly acquired lands since the [T]ribe was restored to Federal recognition, and they cannot meet the standard in 25 C.F.R. § 292.12 (c)(1).” Id. (quoting § 292.”
City of Council Bluffs v. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 11 F.4th 852 (8th Cir. 2021).
“Instead, § 3 of the Ponca Restoration Act makes applicable to the Tribe all laws of general application to Indians and Indian tribes, including the Indian Gaming -10- Regulatory Act and the Indian Reorganization Act.”
Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians v. United States Dep't of the Interior (D.D.C. 2020).
· cites it 2× “See 25 C.F.R. § 292.12 (2020). Section 292.12 describes the criteria a tribe “must meet” to “establish connections to newly acquired lands for purposes of the ‘restored lands’ exception”: (a) The newly acquired lands must be located within the State or States where the tribe is…”
Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians v. Burgum (D.D.C. 2025).
· cites it 2× “” 25 C.F.R. § 292.12 (b). On first review, Interior rejected the Band’s application because it had failed to establish enough historical ties to the Vallejo parcel.”
E. Band of Cherokee Indians v. United States Dep't of the Interior (D.D.C. 2021).
“28 Plaintiffs contend that this was wrong for three separate reasons: (i) the Kings Mountain Site cannot qualify as the Catawba’s “restored lands” consistent with the Settlement Act; (ii) Interior applied the wrong regulation ( 25 C.F.R. § 292.12 ) to determine whether the lands…”
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