Secretary Haaland Highlights Progress to Strengthen Indian Country in New York

Date: Friday, June 28, 2024
Contact: Interior_Press@ios.doi.gov

NEW YORK — Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland traveled to New York this week to meet with Tribal leaders and community members to highlight the Interior Department’s progress in strengthening Indian Country. Her visit underscored the transformational investments in Indian Country made possible by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda and the Biden-Harris administration’s historic progress to empower Tribal sovereignty, self-determination and prosperity. 

Secretary Haaland met with Tribal leaders from the Cayuga Nation, Oneida Indian Nation, Seneca Nation of Indians, Shinnecock Nation, Tonawanda Band of Seneca and Tuscarora Nation.

Throughout her visits, Secretary Haaland underscored the Department’s commitment to strengthening Indian Country. The President’s Investing in America agenda is deploying record investments to provide affordable high-speed internet, safer roads and bridges, modern wastewater and sanitations systems, clean drinking water, reliable and affordable electricity, good paying jobs and economic development in every Tribal community. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law alone invests more than $13 billion directly in Tribal communities across the country. 

On June 28, 1969, a violent confrontation between police and gay rights activists outside the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York’ City’s Greenwich Village began a movement for equal rights for queer people in the United States and across the globe. Today, in commemoration of Pride Month, Secretary Haaland joined President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, National Park Service staff and community leaders at Stonewall National Monument to celebrate the opening of its new visitor center and commemorate Pride Month. Designated by President Barack Obama on June 24, 2016, Stonewall National Monument is the first national park site dedicated to LGBTQI+ rights and history. The new visitor center, operated in partnership with Pride Live, will serve as an educational resource center, featuring various programs that share LGBTQI+ history and culture, including the ongoing struggle for equality. 

Under Secretary Haaland’s leadership, the Department has taken significant steps to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA). In February, the Department release its comprehensive Equity Action Plan, an important step towards the Department’s efforts to meet the goals of President Biden’s Executive Order 14091, which charges federal agencies with proactively addressing the systemic barriers that impede equal opportunity for underserved communities. Secretary Haaland also established the first-ever DEIA Council to incorporate these practices into the Department’s work across its many bureaus.  

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