{"id":125671,"date":"2020-01-30T13:11:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T21:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=125671"},"modified":"2020-01-30T14:05:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T22:05:47","slug":"appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/","title":{"rendered":"Appellate Court to Hear Mashpee Legal Fight for Reservation, First Light Casino"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts will have 15 minutes next week to plead for its reservation and for the right to build a $1 billion casino resort in Taunton, in the southeast of the state.<\/p>\n

\"Mashpee
Mashpee tribal members protesting after the DOI reversal in 2018. (Image: Boston Globe)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mashpee tribal chairman Cedric Cromwell<\/a> announced Wednesday that the First US Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear the tribe\u2019s appeal of a 2016 federal court ruling that torpedoed the casino plan.<\/p>\n

The hearing is scheduled for February 5 in Boston, where the tribe will have just a quarter-hour to present its oral argument.<\/p>\n

DOI Disaster\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 2016, a federal judge ruled that the Obama-era decision to take land into trust for the Mashpee was flawed. That’s because the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction in 1934 when the Indian Reorganization Act passed into law.<\/p>\n

The court sent the case back to the DOI for review, which in 2018 duly reversed the decisio<\/a>n. This ultimately stripped the tribe not only of the casino, but also its sovereign reservation.<\/p>\n

Through this appeal, the Tribe hopes to uphold the original Record of Decision accepting the Tribe\u2019s land into trust,\u201d Cromwell said in the statement. \u201cThis appeal concerns the question of whether the Department of Interior was authorized to take the Tribe\u2019s land into trust.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Mashpee had secured financing for the project from Malaysian casino giant Genting, which was also offering financial assistance to the tribal government. In 2016, the project was ready to break ground. The First Light Resort & Casino was to have 300 hotel rooms, 3,000 slot machines, 150 table games and 40 poker tables.<\/p>\n

But a group of Taunton residents, bankrolled by rival casino developer Neil Bluhm, launched the legal battle that ultimately derailed the project.<\/p>\n

$500 Million in Debt<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Despite tracing an ancestral line to the tribe that broke bread with the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving, the Mashpee were only granted federal recognition in 2007. They gradually lost ownership of their ancestral homelands to white settlers in the 19th century.<\/p>\n

The tribe has been left severely indebted to Genting by some $500 million, and the potential loss of the reservation threatens further economic hardship.<\/p>\n

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe\u2019s citizens are currently suffering a massive loss of resources and services due to the uncertainty of the trust status of the Reservation,\u201d reads the tribe\u2019s \u201cStand with the Mashpee\u201d campaign website.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMillions of dollars of funding are being lost or delayed for our clean water program, our children\u2019s education \u2026 and critical community service programs,” it continues. \u201cIt\u2019s also a direct threat to our emergency services, housing, and substance abuse program that\u2019s desperately needed to combat the opioid epidemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court is expected to take several months to issue its decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts will have 15 minutes next week to plead for its reservation and for the right to build a $1 billion casino resort in Taunton, in the southeast of the state. Mashpee tribal chairman Cedric Cromwell announced Wednesday that the First US Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":125672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,18456],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAppellate Court to Hear Mashpee Fight for Reservation, First Light Casino<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts\u2019s dream of First Light Resort & Casino lies in tatters, but appellate court has agreed to hear case.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Appellate Court to Hear Mashpee Fight for Reservation, First Light Casino\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts\u2019s dream of First Light Resort & Casino lies in tatters, but appellate court has agreed to hear case.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-01-30T21:11:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-01-30T22:05:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mashpee.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"940\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/\",\"name\":\"Appellate Court to Hear Mashpee Fight for Reservation, First Light Casino\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mashpee.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-01-30T21:11:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-01-30T22:05:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts\u2019s dream of First Light Resort & Casino lies in tatters, but appellate court has agreed to hear case.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/appellate-court-to-hear-mashpee-legal-fight-for-reservation-first-light-casino\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mashpee.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mashpee.jpg\",\"width\":1440,\"height\":940,\"caption\":\"Mashpee tribal members protesting after the DOI reversal in 2018. 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