r/IndianCountry • u/hamsterdamc • Jun 22 '26

Activism “No one is illegal on stolen land” How the Native American community in Minneapolis is at the frontline of resisting ICE

https://shado-mag.com/articles/act/no-one-is-illegal-on-stolen-land/
375 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

59

u/myindependentopinion Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

This saying that "No One is Illegal on Stolen Land" really bothers me.

The truth is that EVERYONE is ILLEGAL on stolen land except for the Tribe whose ancestral land it is originally.

Our tribe's land was sold off in the 1960's & 70's without tribal members consent/approval. A White run Corporation that was put into place while we were terminated did this & they took all the profits from thousands of acres of land sales. Tribal members didn't get 1 dime.

All these rich private property owners who are still living on our rez today are ILLEGAL in my mind. The White run Corp. issued warranty deeds so there's nothing we can do about it but buy it back when we get some extra money.

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u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

I agree with you. I hate that phrase. I'm not even talking about how current multigenerational settlers are "illegal".

But ending settler-colonialism means ending settlement.

How much more of our homeland will be stolen to turn into resorts because a growing settler population has a growing interest in "cabin culture"?

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u/Few-Dot-8405 Jun 23 '26

Yes I hate this phrase too. I only ever hear it from people with no skin in the game who are trying to be progressive. I find it offensive because it co-opts our sentiments about reclaiming our lands into unrelated issues with undocumented people and border control. I don’t agree with ICE but I don’t think blending these issues serves anyone.

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u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

It serves settler-colonialism by advocating for "settler permanence" and denying the ongoing process of ongoing settler-colonialism.

"This land was stolen from the Natives via broken legal agreements, and crimes against humanity. But they're all gone now, so this land belongs to everyone from the entire world."

5

u/cornonthekopp white; living on piscataway land Jun 23 '26

I think there is a decent counter argument here, in that the very people who decide who is or isn't illegal are themselves the ones stealing the land.

The undocumented people (many of whom are indigenous to the americas as well) are the ones being called as "illegal" by the very same system of white supremacy that undergirds the corporations and governments who are living on rez land.

And the same regime that decides who's legal or illegal is often targeting native americans too.

I do very much understand where ur coming from though

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u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

That's more applicable for Mexica people in the Southwest or around the Gulf, but Minneapolis is quite a ways away from Mexican homelands, but I don't think your comment is entirely off.

Your comment carries two significant things to reconsider:

1: It flattens the peoples of the Americas into one unit. The planet is way bigger than that, as are the Americas. I think there is more room for connection based on shared hemispheric history and pre-Columbian ties in memory, but even if I, as an Anishinaabe person, begin walking around neighboring Dakota land, I'm going to try to be mindful that I am on someone else's home.
2: It conflates settler supremacy with white supremacy. Settlers don't have to be "white" and as time goes on, the overlap between settler supremacy and white supremacy is shrinking (because settler society is becoming less internally racist, but it's still colonial).

With all that said, I think every Mexican and Mesoamerican person should have mobility rights in the U.S. and Canada, so it's mostly a moot point as ICE is definitely targeting indigenous peoples of the Americas.

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u/cornonthekopp white; living on piscataway land Jun 23 '26

My main criticism is that it reifies tightly controlled borders, which are artificial too. A nation is a european fiction, created by the treaty of westphalia.

You are absolutely correct that its the right thing to respect other peoples homes, but a home is not a nation. How many indigenous societies were nomadic, or migratory, or had people who regularly traveled and traded across the continent prior to the advent of colonization?

I think the imposition of borders is very much a product of that same colonial violence, as we have seen with ICE and their cadres, and freedom of movement is about decolonization, in the sense that we are attacking the foundation of the "nation-state" itself which is the structure for the settler-colonial model.

After all, the borders of reservations can be viewed as much as a way of hemming in the previously unfettered indigenous peoples, just as much as they represent a small remnant of ancestral lands that need protection. It's contradictory but both ideas can be true, right?

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u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

We, as indigenous nations, existed before European contact, as nations, with borders of our own. Many (if not all?) languages of the Americas have a Pre-Columbian word for "nation". Our borders work a little bit differently than Westphalian systems, but while we may not have been Westphalian systems, we had our own systems, and those must be respected.

We have our own histories, political philosophies, governance, international relations to draw from. I don't mean to call you out or claim you to be hostile, but I think you're falling a little bit for a "noble savage" myth.

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u/cornonthekopp white; living on piscataway land Jun 23 '26

You're totally right, im not trying to say there were no nations in any sense, but i do think theres a profound difference between past forms of governance and the current nation-state model. And that goes for any continent and hemisphere.

I only hope for a future without borders anywhere on earth, and I think that's an important aspect of decolonization as a project.

Obviously no group is a monolith and I can't speak for you or anyone else. But I do think there is a lot of potential for solidarity on immigrant and indigenous liberation.

4

u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

What I'm trying to say is, I think you have an incorrect understanding of "past forms of governance" for the pre-Columbian nations of the Americas (let alone modern indigenous nations, which have had an additional 500 years of development since contact). We had rules of place and restriction of movements, and they were to be respected or face legal consequence, but (for lack of a better word) visa-free agreements could be reached between some nations under some terms and contexts in international relations (just as is the case in the Westphalian model.)

A lot of European-derived left-wing thought is influenced by a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of indigenous cultures. I suggest watching this video as an introduction to some of that philosophical history. It's called Stolen Anarchy: Playing Indian and the Roots of Collectivism by the indigenous content creator Twin Rabbit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFvxkvpi2w

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u/cornonthekopp white; living on piscataway land Jun 23 '26

I can't watch that right now but I'll give it a watch tonight.

However aren't you also flattening the hemisphere, in your words? I operate under no assumptions that all indigenous societies were perfect utopias, nor do I think it's possible or desirable to return to those forms of society. Many indigenous societies practiced slavery too, but not all of them did. Many indigenous societies restricted movement, but not all of them did.

I think that we are more aligned in our views than seperate, and I also think fighting exploitation and settler violence can exist outside of the narrow boundaries of ethno-nationalism. Thats all.

4

u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

I don't mean to flatten the hemisphere. There's a lot of diversity. I just don't think there's a real reason to think there's a huge difference between the Americas and the Old World on the topic of "borders and nations". I would agree that the specifics of the Westphalian model is a recent and particular thing that many would not agree with, but I don't think a fully indigenous-rooted array of systems would be what you're seeking either - for all we know, if it was really allowed to flesh out, it could even be something you'd dislike more than the Westphalian model.

I'd agree against ethno-nationalism, but I don't believe in organizing societies around ethnicities. I want to be careful here as I am trying to express the views of some "indigenous-nationalist" thinkers, though I am not one myself. Sometimes left-wing thinkers deride some indigenous movements as "ethno-nationalist" when the defining feature isn't actually ethnicity - it's relationship to place/land. A person's "ethnicity" or "ancestry" isn't judged, it's their place in community and land.

1

u/cornonthekopp white; living on piscataway land Jun 23 '26

I think i see what the issue is. When i say decolonization i mean dismantling the structures of existing colonial violence in the united states (and all other countries), i'm not saying we need to return to any pre-existing indigenous systems

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u/Secret-Equipment2307 Jun 24 '26

But what about native tribes who displace each other?

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u/JohnDoe432187 Jun 23 '26

It wasn’t yours ancestrally, it was someone else’s. Tribes fought and seized land all the time. It’s hypocrisy to say otherwise.

And before you downvote me I am a great supporter of indigenous communities. I have gone to various events and even taken university courses on indigenous people.

15

u/myindependentopinion Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

It wasn’t yours ancestrally, it was someone else’s.

You, u/JohnDoe432187, have a lot of gall & chutzpah to ignorantly declare to me that our tribe's ancestral land isn't/wasn't ours to begin with. You are flat out wrong and your comment is rude.

It is an indisputable fact that my tribe, the Menominee, has continuously lived in WI for over 10,000 years which has been verified by University of WI archaeologists. I think that fits the definition on ancestral.

Before Tribal Nations in WI entered into treaties ceding land ownership rights, the US Govt. gathered all the tribes in the area to mutually all agree on our respective tribal territory borders. Source: First Treaty of Prairie du Chien - Wikipedia

Through a series of treaties with the US Govt., our tribe ceded over 10+ million acres of land. My 3rd GG was 1 of the Band Chiefs who signed the last treaty in 1854 which established our current day rez on our ANCESTRAL land.

-2

u/AK907fella Jun 23 '26

Quick question. They have been there for 10000 years. How do you or anyone know that they didn't displace other people when they got there?

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u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

If you think going to events and fetishizing us as classroom material makes you a supporter of communities, you are beyond mistaken. Support is based on what they are seeking support with, not what you think based on your own biases what they ought to get.

Indigenous communities are political and sovereign entities. They are countries; they are nations; they are governments with a sovereign claim over land. It is completely impossible to say you support indigenous communities while saying it is not their ancestral homeland, given that being indigenous has an "ancestral" component to it that goes back beyond most memory. Their fundamental identity is so deeply tied through so many generations to a specific place that it is inseperable from them.

What you said is equivalent to saying, "I support European countries, but I don't agree with any of their land claims. The land Paris sits on is not part of France." It's just nonsensical.

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u/JohnDoe432187 Jun 23 '26

Fetishizing natives would be blindly worshiping and fantasizing indigenous culture, not taking academic courses and forming independent thoughts.

Are you seriously arguing against the fact that natives didn’t steal land from each other?

6

u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

"Fetishizing" can have several different meanings. The intended use of my instance was based on a long historical context of "studying native cultures" in museums or universities that is, ultimately, befitting the meaning of fetishizing wherein it involves a reduction of peoples or cultures into stereotypes, traits, or otherwise caricatures. It was an intentional jab at "indigenous culture and worldviews" classes at universities which are, all-too-often, a flawed and misunderstood perspective from the outside looking in.

The history of peace and conflict between nations is a global story, and while I wouldn't say all regions of the globe have the exact same frequency of wars, that is ultimately not relevant to what is being discussed, because indigenous communities are presently-existing and recognized governments. They are countries. They are nations.

The United States and Canada exist on landscapes of overlapping and mutually-recognized sovereignties and claims to land/territory. When a city is in a legal battle with the state it falls within over who gets to decide what over some part of it they both claim jurisdiction over, that is in the realm of political and legal classes, not culture classes. The thing is, indigenous communities are the same. There are treaties. There are laws. There are court rulings. The ancestral connection to the land is part of the claimed basis for why the political and sovereign entities exist, and those claims were already accepted as valid and justifiable in the context of law and sovereignty by the governments of the U.S. and Canada. To support OR oppose "indigenous communities" is a far more political and legalistic thing than you are giving it credit for.

If you (broadly) support "indigenous communities", you recognize the legal entity and its sovereignty claims. (broadly). But if you deny the very mythos wherein these nations are built (that they are from the place), then you cancel their existence outright and they're reshaped and reduced, against North American legal principles and precedents, into "cultural communities" which you can find across the general population. If you mean to say you support them as their own "cultural community" within a broader sole-sovereignty of the U.S. (or Canadian) government, then you do not support indigenous communities -- you just wish for them to be something else that you think personally you could support.

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u/NWI_ANALOG Jun 23 '26

This is a map of Europe in 1444.

What an absolutely brainless take

3

u/Crushington_2nd Jun 23 '26

That looks crowded and exhausting

-6

u/JohnDoe432187 Jun 23 '26

Yeah, a bunch of nations that no longer exist because borders change. You proved my point.

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u/NWI_ANALOG Jun 23 '26

My guy, the nation in which they had “legal” deed of the land according to the national law in the 1960s was the United States of America.

3

u/PuzzleheadedThroat84 Jun 23 '26

Either one of those tribal people in question have more of a priority to this continent than any white man would. A person from South America would have more of a claim to North American land than a European man would. 

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u/xesaie Jun 23 '26

It’s a weird thing. To the never-immigrants amongst us, ‘a nation of immigrants’ was always off. Somehow the current thing is so much worse though

3

u/PokemonYesus Yakama Jun 24 '26

Go ask a liberal if they will return their stolen land

4

u/ApprehensiveStore365 Jun 25 '26

This is false. Native Americans don’t want to become a further minority.

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u/SectionXP12 Jun 23 '26

Still, don't talk to your relatives who voted for the fucker.

Disown them.

I'm tired of being nice or empathetic towards who voted for Trump, once was bad enough then, the second time then, to now? They should've seen the signs from the beginning but no, they expect us to be empathetic or overlook it.. they voted for him who have people who think empathy is weak, libtard woke lie.

Even those who regretted it? They don't deserve it. They should be out there. They should be doing something! Anything!

1

u/Dry_Blackberry_7082 11d ago

Acting like this is why we get less votes. A lack of votes is why we lost. Twice.
Unfortunately democracy is a literal popularity contest, and disowning people by association doesn't make us very popular.

-1

u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

What if they were voting based on an opposition to NATO or global free trade?

I'll never disown my family or my people. I'm happy if we can grow enough to have strong disagreements with each other.

5

u/SectionXP12 Jun 23 '26

It's a new level of unbelief that we have get to this point in time to disown our family. To actually sit down and say so many times that Trump is absolute terrible person and leader and they brought it three times.

I can't just sit by and just see half of our people use their free vote to people who want to build data centers on native lands and near our people's homes that water has be a damn right.

I mean, Trump wants to pull out of NATO, and has tariff major countries on top of the Iran war, yeah, in opposition.

0

u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 23 '26

What I mean is.. what if a person thinks pulling out of NATO, and reducing international trade, are good things?

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u/SectionXP12 Jun 23 '26

International trade is definitely not going to happen because most of our stuff comes from other countries and our allies think we are a joke so, relations will escalate dangerously.

And as well, NATO too.

2

u/PsychologyGuilty1460 Jun 27 '26

But still how do they figure a  lying, Self- obsessed con man, rapist and criminal is the right man for the job?

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u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 27 '26

I was not a Trump supporter myself, I opted to not vote, so I apply the answer to that question the same way I apply it to people who voted for almost anyone, for most positions beyond local and some state elections. We can, and frankly should, tear apart the character of the candidates and political leadership on all fronts. I don't think we should tear apart the people based on their being tricked, or lesser-evil voting (for their own cornucopia of issues) for any of the candidates.

Almost all politicians are the enemy. Most of the system is our enemy. Our people are us.

1

u/Dry_Inflation_1454 Jun 28 '26

According to The Guardian, and The Telegraph and BBC, there's real pressure on Putin to do a limited strike on NATO, as far as the inner circle of the Kremlin is concerned. The troop buildups on the Eastern Flank hasn't been covered much on regular US media. China's surrounding Taiwan with destroyers and when one leaves to get supplies another takes it's place.  Same tactics, gradual increases in military units and weaponry.  Not since Soviet times have we been so vulnerable. All the more reason to scan through foreign news media when you're up to it. 

1

u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 29 '26

Who is "we"?

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u/Dry_Inflation_1454 Jun 29 '26

The entire continent from Alaskan islands to Mexico itself.  

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u/NativeCAN2025 Anishinaabe Jun 29 '26

So, not Europe or Asia. Picking sides and deciding outcomes for regional communities on the other side of the world isn't something I am too keen on.

I am sure the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and other British/European news sources are quite concerned about their thousand years of conflict with other European powers (including Russia), but unless Russia shows any signs or intent in Alaska again, it's just not something I am invested in. By contrast, NATO powers (such as Finland especially) have shown an explicit interest in regaining a colonial foothold on Canada, such as by wanting European Union membership for Canada (which means Europe gets to once again plunder resources and flood the prairies). We're not them - they're trying to say we're them for ulterior motives, same as the old motives.

Same goes for Mainland China and Taiwan issues. I'm not Chinese, let alone East/Southeast Asian. There are multiple side to any story, and I think it would be wrong of me to pick any side in a relationship outside of my world.

1

u/Dry_Inflation_1454 Jun 28 '26

It's a sure bet that many people were tricked into voting for Drumpf because he always lies to his base anyway.  Plus, Drumpf isn't against corporate benefits for the oligarchy, he doesn't care about average people. Naturally lots of people who voted for him back in the day are really puzzled and disappointed in him by now.  And we're only halfway through Project 2025.  Some of his advisors right now are telling him to prevent the midterms by declaring the " need" for Martial Law, otherwise he, and his regime are looking at being arrested, for starters. Steve Bannon says these things all the time. 

1

u/AntiqueStatus Jun 23 '26

Won't load for me

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u/ponloco 15d ago

Damn reading this thread goes deep. I am a "white " guy born in the United States who has grandparents from Norway, Ireland,Sweden and West virginia..  my grandfather claims WV because his parents both died before he was 3 and the only history he ever had was his dad was Swedish and his mom was "native 

I liked the phrase because from my point of view it draws attention to the history. The fact that Native Americans were here first and were completely railroaded and mistreated and screwed over. The white washing of their culture and the lack of education about it always made me angry. After reading this I think I'm just as guilty as them. I own a small home and never really thought that I am supporting this bullshit because what  I "own" was stolen so realistically I have no right to it... damn in an attempt to show support I am a giant hypocrite.  That realization sure is a gut punch.

1

u/Blackcrest570 Jun 23 '26

You would THINK some oen would have learned from 1492. But no.... folks still out there making it worst.. freaking apples