US Senator Mullin Accused of ‘Tribal Termination’ Over UKB Land, Gaming Ban
Posted on: August 5, 2025, 05:57h.
Last updated on: August 5, 2025, 05:57h.
- Senator’s draft bill could limit UKB land and gaming.
- Tribe claims provision is an attack on sovereign rights.
- UKB signed gaming compact now awaiting federal approval.
Oklahoma’s United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians (UKB) is demanding the immediate withdrawal of a draft Senate provision that would bar it from acquiring new trust land or establishing gaming operations within the Cherokee Nation Reservation.
The UKB calls the move “a targeted act of tribal termination.”
Obtained only through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the proposed amendment was reportedly drafted by US Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-2nd Dist.), a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. It could be inserted into an upcoming federal appropriations bill.
The draft provision reads, in part: “No funds appropriated under this or any other Act shall be used to take land into trust within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation in Oklahoma without the written consent of the Cherokee Nation.”
It adds that “no other Indian tribe than the Cherokee Nation shall possess tribal jurisdiction over such Reservation,” and that any existing trust land acquired by another tribe “shall be for non-gaming purposes only.”
Longstanding Spat
The UKB shares overlapping territory with the Cherokee Nation but remains a distinct sovereign government with around 15,000 enrolled citizens, most of whom reside in northeastern Oklahoma.
Both tribes trace their lineage to the historic Cherokee people and are headquartered in Tahlequah but have clashed over territorial sovereignty. The Cherokee Nation has long argued it holds exclusive jurisdiction over Cherokee lands in the state.
The Nation operates ten casinos in Oklahoma, while the UKB has none. The class II bingo hall it opened in 1986 was shut down in 2013 following a lawsuit by the Nation and pressure from state and federal regulators.
At issue was the UKB’s lack of federally designated trust land, a legal requirement for tribal gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).
That has now changed. In 2019, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the US Interior Department’s (DOI) decision to take a 76-acre parcel of land into trust for the tribe after the Nation sued to block the move.
In April this year, the UKB signed a gaming compact with the state of Oklahoma, which is now pending final approval from the DOI
‘Secret Pen in a Senate Office’
“This is not a policy disagreement. This is a deliberate, targeted act of tribal termination by … Senator Mullin,” UKB Chief Jeff Wacoche told Casino.org of Mullin’s draft amendment. “The … language is a blatant betrayal of the US government’s trust responsibility, a violation of federal law, and an attack on tribal sovereignty.”
Wacoche went further, calling the language “genocide by redline.”
“It is being carried out not with muskets or manifest destiny, but with a secret pen in a Senate office,” he said.
The tribe is now urging members of Congress, other tribal nations, and the public to pressure Mullin and the Cherokee Nation to scrap the proposed amendment.
We are a federally recognized Tribe with our own government-to-government relationship with the United States,” Wacoche said. “To suggest otherwise is to willfully ignore history, federal law, and the truth.”
Casino.org has reached out to Mullin’s office for comment but had not heard back as of press time.
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