IC Magazine reports:

Leticia Jacobo was scheduled to be released from Polk County Jail in Des Moines, Iowa, after being booked in for a traffic violation. Instead, the 24-year-old Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community citizen was scheduled for deportation.

Last week, ICE raided Little Earth, a Native community of South Minneapolis, Minnesota, detaining at least 5 Native American men. ICE agents even tried to forcibly detain Rachel Dionne-Thunder, who is Plains Cree and the co-founder of Indigenous Protectors Movement, out of her vehicle.

The Sheriff’s Department marked Jacobo as an undocumented immigrant to be sent into ICE custody, although her Tribal ID proved she is a Tribal citizen, and therefore a U.S. citizen.

The Supreme Court’s decision supporting racial profiling encourages ICE to question, detain, or attempt to deport Native Americans. Yet something much more concerning is at play: the Exclusive Citizenship Act, a bill introduced in Congress on December 1, 2025.

Jacobo, as other Indigenous people in the United States, holds dual citizenship, receiving citizenship from both her tribal and the federal government. This dual status was imposed in 1924 with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act that forcibly turned all tribal citizens into U.S. citizens.

A century later, the Exclusive Citizenship Act seeks to ban dual or multiple citizenship for all U.S. citizens, requiring current dual citizens to either renounce their foreign citizenship or their U.S. citizenship. For Native Americans, it could imply choosing between assimilation or their Tribal identity. [Continue reading…]