In the editor's report (no author's name is given) Nations Continue to 'fight for the line', (Indian Country Today, September 6, 2007), the author outlines some of the issues complicating the border crossing (between the US and Canada) for First Nations, or Native American, people whose citizenship is primarily with a tribal nation. As the author suggests, theoretically this kind of border crossing is protected by both international (Treaty of Ghent) and national (Immigration and Citizenship Acts) legislation, however it seems both the history of that protection, as well as its status after 9/11, remain problematically obscure. The article brings up one of the most interesting--and oddly promising--issues in Native studies: what happens when tribal national jurisdictions overlap with other, international borders? This is an issue that many people struggle with daily (as explored in Thomas King's Truth and Bright Water), and one whose resolution seems contingent on the increased recognition by so-called 'western' nations of tribal national sovereignty. Ultimately, this article makes me wonder: if tribal nations are not explicitly reauthorized by countries like the US and Canada, will these local-level disturbances lead to some kind of generalized apathy toward the issue in non-Native countries?
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