BELCOURT, N.D. -- It's tax season, and a nationwide program is helping low-income North Dakotans prepare their returns for free.

Legal Services of North Dakota is working with the Internal Revenue Service to provide the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA program.

It's available to folks who are income eligible, which is based on household size and age but is generally open to folks who make $56,000 a year or less.

Rhonda Belgarde-Baker, a paralegal tribal advocate with Legal Services of North Dakota says her organization is targeting the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation and Spirit Lake Indian Reservation for assistance, noting that VITA is an important resource for tribal communities.

"Specifically because a lot individuals are low income, and our whole purpose is to provide services for those who are low income so that they don't have to pay triple-digit interest on having a paid preparer prepare their return," she states.

The VITA program is offered at locations in Belcourt and Fort Totten. Anyone who is income eligible and sets up an appointment can receive assistance.

Belgarde-Baker says her organization can also offer help on state tax returns.

She says volunteers offer line-by-line assistance and financial literacy during appointments, which typically take about 30 minutes. They e-file the returns for free and filers can use direct deposit for refunds.

Belgarde-Baker says volunteers screen folks to make sure they have everything they need before coming into the office.

"Especially in rural communities, you know, you're traveling 30 minutes to a store!" she states. "So if you're going to come into the tax office, we want to make sure that you're not having to go back and forth, that it's a one trip type of a situation."

The VITA program received $18 million in fiscal year 2019 to help people prepare their taxes this year.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Tribal Nations as Tribal stakeholders. It also did not mention the National Monument Designation would be within the National Park System. (8:37 a.m PST, May 1, 2024)

Native American tribes in Nevada are calling for designation of a new national monument within the National Park System in east central Nevada.

They say Bahsahwahbee, commonly known as Swamp Cedars in White Pine County, holds cultural and spiritual significance for tribal nations.

Alvin Marques, chairman of the Ely Shoshone Tribe, explained Bahsahwahbee was a place of religious gatherings, healing ceremonies and celebrations, which made it a target for settlers who expanded into Indigenous "Newe territories" of the Western Shoshone Tribe. It was also the site where the largest known Indian massacre in U.S. history took place.

Marques said the federal government now has the chance to stand with tribes and honor Bahsahwahbee.

"It, in the past, was a place of celebration and became a place of mourning," Marques emphasized "It means enough to me that it needs to be protected forever. It would mean a lot for all the tribes involved and it's way overdue."

He pointed out before the tragedies, Bahsahwahbee was a place of happiness and should be remembered for both the good and bad. He added people from across the Great Basin still go to the area to visit their ancestors, pray and hold ceremonies. Three tribes are collecting signatures with the goal of getting Bahsahwahbee designated as a national monument.

While he cannot speak for all Nevadans, Marques suspects many in the Silver State probably are not aware of what happened at Bahsahwahbee. He feels confident high-ranking government officials are demonstrating strong support to stand with the tribes to preserve and commemorate what Marques calls a "sacred place."

"Time is running out, so we need action now," Marques stressed. "It's time for the federal government and our representatives to center our tribes and our history, and do the right thing, which is how the tribes have proposed this monument."

He added a national monument designation within the National Park System also would help familiarize more people with the Bahsahwahbee story. Those opposed to the monument recognition argued Nevada already has too much public land where uses are restricted, but proponents argue this is false.


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A Nevada grassroots organization has launched its inaugural endorsement process for the 2024 elections in an effort to champion indigenous voices in the Silver State.

Taylor Patterson, executive director of the Native Voters Alliance Nevada, said the state is getting better about tribal and indigenous representation but contended there is still a long way to go. Nevada is home to 21 federally recognized tribes and 28 reservations, but only one Native legislator.

Patterson explained they saw the need to be more engaged with issues from the top to the bottom of the ticket.

"I think very easily we can forget that Native people are everyday people," Patterson observed. "I think it has been painted in a very specific way of 'still is very much a person of the past,' but there are people who are in all different spaces that are engaging with the government in a multitude of ways that need to be represented."

Patterson acknowledged the state does have elected officials who understand the needs of the Native community but hopes the new initiative will give those who are not familiar with the Native space an opportunity to learn more.

Last summer, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo expanded Nevada's Effective Absentee System for Elections program program, which requires election clerks to meet with all tribes located in their respective jurisdictions to coordinate voting locations prior to elections.

Patterson noted they have had a good response from candidates and she is pleased to know officials are starting to realize the meaning and value of an endorsement from Native Voters Alliance Nevada. She said her organization can help provide politicians with access to Indigenous communities.

"In recent years there has been so much made of sort of this 'BIPOC' label," Patterson emphasized. "I very often have to remind all sorts of people, whether those are federal agencies or elected officials, you're not truly working with the BIPOC vote share or BIPOC people if you're not working with the 'I.'"

Patterson added the endorsement process will be instrumental to shaping policy and governance in the Silver State.

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Next week, Native American leaders from the Midwest will go before a United Nations panel with their concerns over a controversial oil pipeline they say is trespassing on tribal lands.

Enbridge's Line 5 operation in the Great Lakes region is expected to be a topic when the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues convenes Monday in New York.

In the Midwest, the law firm Earthjustice represents some Tribes contesting the rerouting of Line 5 in Wisconsin. There, managing attorney Debbie Chizewer said climate change is affecting the region and tribal nations' ability to exercise their treaty rights.

"The perpetuation of this fossil-fuel infrastructure will only worsen that," she said, "and will affect their special tribal resources, like sugar maple and loons, and whitefish and other species that are an integral part of Bay Mills and other tribal nations."

The pipeline runs through Wisconsin and Michigan, traversing the treaty-reserved territory of tribal nations, including the Bay Mills Indian Community and Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Enbridge rejects those claims and has said it isn't trespassing on tribal lands.

Similar cases have been filed in other parts of the Midwest. In Michigan, opponents have said they're worried about Enbridge's plan to construct an oil tunnel beneath the Great Lakes. The company has claimed it would be safer than the existing pipeline, but Native American Rights Fund senior staff attorney Wes Furlong said he sees it as a disaster waiting to happen.

"There is a likelihood that if a leak happened within that tunnel, it would cause a catastrophic failure," he said. "Essentially, the tunnel could explode underneath the Straits of Mackinac, pumping crude oil into the strait and into the Great Lakes."

Furlong said pushing back against Line 5 aligns with calls to reduce the use of fossil fuels, citing its connection to climate change and the impact on treaty-reserved resources in the Midwest, on which Tribes rely.

"There's pending litigation over the State of Michigan's order to shut down the pipeline, and ordering Enbridge to vacate the state-owned bottomlands of the Strait of Mackinac," he added. "So, that would spell, I think, the end of Line 5 as we know it."

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