Why Tribes Should Have the Power to Enforce Strict Coronavirus Policies
Nonmembers who flout tribal stay-at-home orders could pose an existential threat to tribal communities.
American Indians face a grave ordeal in the COVID-19 pandemic. With awful poverty, dire rates of preexisting health conditions, and an already-broken rural health-care system, the death rates on reservations are sure to be higher than just about anywhere else in the country. One additional factor is making fighting the pandemic even harder for tribes: the legal complexities that govern American Indian reservations.
To fight this pandemic, governments around the world have needed to impose—and enforce—restrictions on people’s freedom to move and gather. But many Indian Country residents are not members of a tribe,
