Native Americans - Current Situation

1. 50% of the Native Americans live on federal reservations. The majority of the reservations are situated west of the Mississippi River.
2. Some of the social challenges are unemployment, poverty, alcoholism and drug abuse.
3. Today all the tribes possess the right to from their own goverment, to enforce laws, to tax, to establish requierments for membership, to license and regulate activities, to zone and to exclude persons from tribal territories.
4. Many of Native Americans and also advocates, who figths for Native American rights, point out that the US Federal Government's claim to recognize the ''sovereignty'' of Native American peoples falls short.The US still wishes to govern Native American peoples and treat them as subject to US law.
5. The BIA states that its responsibility is the ''administration and management of 55,700,000 acres (225,000km2) of land held in trust by the United States og American Indians, Alaskan Natives and Indian Tribes.''