The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is the primary federal agency charged with carrying out the United States’ trust responsibility to American Indian and Alaska Native people, maintaining the federal government-to-government relationship with the federally recognized Indian tribes, and promoting and supporting tribal self-determination. The bureau implements federal laws and policies and administers programs established for American Indians and Alaska Natives under the trust responsibility and the government-to-government relationship.

Because the Constitution vested the Legislative Branch with plenary power over Indian Affairs, states have no authority over tribal governments unless expressly authorized by Congress. While federally recognized tribes generally are not subordinate to states, they can have a government-to-government relationship with these other sovereigns, as well.

They provide funding to and administer government program services for the federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes located in 34 states, and through them to their approximately 1.9 million members.
They work with tribes in the administration of approximately 56 million acres of trust land, and the natural resources therein, for the use and benefit of the tribes and individual Indians.
They maintain five law enforcement district offices nationwide to provide police protection and investigative services for both Indian and non-Indians living in Indian Country. We also directly operate or fund tribally operated law enforcement programs, courts, and detention facilities in tribal communities across the U.S.
They build and maintain thousands of miles of roads, as well as bridges, dams, and other physical infrastructure throughout Indian Country which benefit both Indians and non-Indians alike.
They work with other federal, tribal, state, and local emergency personnel in responses to wildland fires and other natural disasters.
They administer the Guaranteed Indian Loan Program to stimulate, increase, and sustain Indian entrepreneurship and business development in tribal communities.
They assist tribes in administering federal economic development and employment and training programs.
They administer BIA programs for tribes unable or who choose not to operate those programs.
They directly serve thousands of individual Indian trust beneficiaries by providing assistance in the probating of Indian trust estates, administering leases approved by the Secretary of the Interior, and performing other fiduciary duties.

In the United States there are three types of reserved federal lands: military, public, and Indian. A federal Indian reservation is an area of land reserved for a tribe or tribes under treaty or other agreement with the United States, executive order, or federal statute or administrative action as permanent tribal homelands, and where the federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe.

Approximately 56.2 million acres are held in trust by the United States for various Indian tribes and individuals. There are approximately 326 Indian land areas in the U.S. administered as federal Indian reservations (i.e., reservations, pueblos, rancherias, missions, villages, communities, etc.). The largest is the 16 million-acre Navajo Nation Reservation located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The smallest is a 1.32-acre parcel in California where the Pit River Tribe’s cemetery is located. Many of the smaller reservations are less than 1,000 acres.

Some reservations are the remnants of a tribe’s original land base. Others were created by the federal government for the resettling of Indian people forcibly relocated from their homelands. Not every federally recognized tribe has a reservation. Federal Indian reservations are generally exempt from state jurisdiction, including taxation, except when Congress specifically authorizes such jurisdiction.

Limitations on inherent tribal powers of self-government are few, but do include the same limitations applicable to states, e.g., neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or print and issue currency.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a rarity among federal agencies. With roots reaching back to the the earliest days of the republic, the BIA is almost as old as the United States itself. For most of its existence, the BIA has mirrored the public's ambivalence towards the nation's indigenous people. But, as federal policy has evolved from seeking the subjugation of American Indians and Alaska Natives into one that respects tribal self-determination, so, too, has the BIA's mission evolved into one that is based on service to and partnership with the tribes.

Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) - To keep Indian children from being separated from their Indian family

Looking back at the past few centuries of America’s westward expansion, we can witness a long history of cataclysmic events inflicted upon generations of American Indians. Our country’s growth was at the expense of the continent’s indigenous peoples who suffered genocide, dislocation, and other unspeakable patterns of violence on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.

The descendants of Native People continue today to suffer from massive group trauma across many generations. This group trauma manifests itself today in myriad ways, from alcoholism and drug addiction, to domestic violence and sexual abuse.[1]

The list of historical traumas is long and painful. First contact with people from Europe caused sometimes as high as 85% of Indian people to die from smallpox, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. These diseases were in fact used as biological warfare to clear the way for foreign communities, plants and animals. Many know of the massacres of Wounded Knee and Sand Creek, but do not know that there were dozens of others. The Cherokee Trail of Tears, for example, forced hundreds to relocate to Indian reservations, which were operated like prison camps by Indian agents.

Federal policies required that children be removed from families and sent to boarding schools where they were systematically belittled and beaten, and sometimes raped and murdered. Prohibiting and perpetuating doubt about Native cultural traditions coincided with a loss of cultural identity. People began to be ashamed to be Indian. This was further exacerbated when the ancient spiritual practices of Indian people were declared illegal, including grieving traditions, songs, and healing practices. Spiritual leaders were frequently banished, imprisoned or murdered. Their sacred pipes, drums and other spiritual bundles were confiscated and burned or put into museums. Tribal terminations, relocation of Native Americans to cities where they lived in poverty, resulted in rampant alcohol abuse and severe mental health and health conditions, especially Type 2 Diabetes. Research continues to demonstrate that these conditions are co-occurring in many of today’s Native peoples

http://discoveringourstory.wisdomoftheelders.org/resources/transcending-historical-trauma

The Indian Adoption Project was to place N.A. children in white families to assimilate them. Around ⅓ of Indian children were put in foster care, some communities didn’t have kids. ICWA was made to stop N.A. children from being separated from their families.

The Seminole Tribe brought suit against the State of Florida for violating the good faith negotiations requirement of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). Under the IGRA, the Tribe may engage in gaming (i.e., casino gambling) activities subject to Florida's good faith regulations. Florida moved to dismiss the Tribe's action, alleging that the lawsuit violated Florida's sovereign immunity. On appeal from the District Court's denial of Florida's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the Eleventh Amendment shielded Florida from federal suit and that under Ex Parte Young, the Tribe may not enforce its right to good faith negotiations by naming Florida's governor as a party to the suit.

the Court held that tribes are not
foreign states, as that term is used in the Constitution, in describing the court’s
original jurisdiction over “controversies” between a state (here, the state of Georgia)
and “foreign states.” Rather, Justice Marshall’s opinion holds that tribes are
“domestic dependent nations,” whose relations with the U.S. resemble that of a “ward
to his guardian.” Marshall’s language represents the genesis of the trust doctrine in
federal Indian law, which holds that the U.S. has a trust responsibility to act on behalf
of Indian Tribes.

a Choctaw
woman gave birth to twins off of the reservations, and the parents (both Choctaw)
signed adoption papers for the children to be adopted by a non-Indian couple. ICWA
provides exclusive jurisdiction over Indian child custody cases where the children are
“domiciled” on the reservation, and the Choctaw tribe interceded here claiming
jurisdiction. Even though the children had never been on the reservation, the Court
6
found that the children were domiciled on the reservation because their parents were
domiciled on the reservation, and the tribe had jurisdiction. The Court found that
“[t]ribal jurisdiction under the ICWA was not meant to be defeated by the actions of
individual members of the tribe,” specifically noting that Congress’ concern in
enacting the ICWA “was based in part of evidence of the detrimental impact on the
children themselves of such placements outside their culture.”