Tribal leaders oppose BIA office closures under Trump, Musk plan [Video]

NORMAN, Okla. — In tribal nations across the United States, leaders are scrambling to respond to a directive from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to close more than a quarter of Bureau of Indian Affairs offices, which provide vital services to Indigenous communities.

Trump and Musk are calling on the General Services Administration, or GSA, to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, including 25 regional offices of the BIA. Those offices fulfill a wide variety of rights the U.S. owes to tribal nations, and some leaders and legal experts are worried the potential closures, layoffs and funding freezes could violate those trust responsibilities.

“It’s a destabilizing action,” said Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of the American Indian. “I really have to think we have to assume the worst, unfortunately.”

In the many treaties the U.S. signed with tribal nations, …