Indian trust mismanagement case goes to trial
National News
The US District Court for the District of Columbia began hearings Monday in Cobell v. Kempthorne, a class-action suit brought in 1996 alleging US government mismanagement of trust funds for a group of some 500,000 Native Americans and their heirs. Judge James Robertson will decide how much the government owes the class members for land-use violation penalties and royalties that plaintiffs say the US Department of the Interior (DOI) has not paid since 1887. In March 2007, the plaintiffs rejected a $7 billion settlement proposal from the US government, and have since asserted that the DOI owes them $58 billion. In January, Robertson ruled that the DOI "unreasonably delayed" the accounting of billions of dollars of American Indian money, holding that it was impossible for the DOI or for Congress to remedy the breach.
In July 2005, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled, that the DOI must apologize to the plaintiffs for its handling of the trust, and must admit that information being provided to them regarding outstanding lost royalties on earnings from Indian land may be unreliable. Lamberth also held two former Secretaries of the Interior, Gale Norton and Bruce Babbitt, in contempt and forced the department to protect Indian files by disconnecting its computers from the Internet. In 2006, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit removed Lamberth for alleged lack of objectivitgy and reassigned the case to Robertson.
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USCIS Issues Clarifying Guidance on NAFTA TN Status Eligibility for Economists
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it is clarifying policy guidance (PDF, 71 KB) on the specific work activities its officers should consider when determining whether an individual qualifies for TN nonimmigrant status as an economist.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) TN nonimmigrant status allows qualified Canadian and Mexican citizens to temporarily enter the U.S. to engage in specific professional activities, including the occupation of economist. The agreement, however, does not define the term economist, resulting in inconsistent decisions on whether certain analysts and financial professionals qualify for TN status as economists.
TN nonimmigrant status is intended to allow a limited number of professionals and specialists to work temporarily in certain specifically identified occupations in the United States. This updated guidance provides USCIS officers with a specific definition of one such category – economists – allowing them to adjudicate applications in a way that complies with the intent of the agreement. This policy update clarifies that professional economists requesting TN status must engage primarily in activities consistent with the profession of an economist. Individuals who work primarily in other occupations related to the field of economics — such as financial analysts, marketing analysts, and market research analysts — are not eligible for classification as a TN economist.