U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit in 2023.
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President Biden is expected to issue a formal apology for the federal government’s Native American boarding schools during a visit to Arizona on Friday, according to the governor of a Native American tribe.
Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis told NPR that the formal apology is coming as part of Biden’s first official visit to an Indigenous community as president.
Biden’s message would be the first public apology from a sitting U.S. president in response to a federal policy that wreaked havoc on tribal communities.
Biden is expected to visit Gila Crossing Community School to issue his formal apology, Lewis said. The apology was confirmed by a person familiar with the White House's thinking who wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the announcement yet.
Also traveling with the president is Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who has also visited the tribe as a part of her “Road to Healing” tour aimed at giving survivors “the opportunity to share with the federal government their experiences in federal Indian boarding schools for the first time.”
The Interior Department earlier this year released a report that confirmed at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children died while attending boarding schools in the system.
“This is going to really start the healing and the reconciliation and the redeeming of this sad part of history, not only for the boarding school survivors. A significant, very important part of this apology is admitting that this happened,” Lewis said in an interview ahead of the trip, where he is expected to travel with Biden on Air Force One.
Lewis said the visit comes full circle after Vice President Harris also paid a visit to the community earlier this month.
“There's going to be a sense of redemption, of confirmation, of what these boarding school survivors have been through," he said.
Between 1819 and 1969, the federal government operated more than 400 boarding schools across the country and provided support for more than 1,000 others, according to the Interior department's investigation. The goal was complete cultural assimilation.
On Haaland’s tour, tribal members have recounted physical abuse, neglect, and efforts to erase their Native languages and culture.
Rodney Butler, the chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians and chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, and Whitney Gravelle, chairwoman of the Bay Mills Indian Community, are also expected to fly with Biden to Arizona for the visit.
“It's almost like we're bringing him — we literally are bringing President Biden, flying with him, bringing him to Indian Country, bringing him to my community,” Lewis said. “This is the last leg of this journey to healing as part of President Biden's administration.”
The landmark visit by the president, which comes less than two weeks before Election Day, fulfills a promise Biden made to tribal leaders two years ago.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in Indian Country as a senator and vice president. But I can say here today I intend to make official presidential visits to Indian Country to make it official,” Biden said during the 2022 tribal summit at the White House.