Posts Tagged ‘Rep. Louise Slaughter’
Here’s the update in full from Samantha Gross of the Associated Press:
Ansley Jemison, center, general manager of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse team, prepares to gather the team for a pep talk while waiting for travel visas in New York. (AP/Bebeto Matthews)
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government, at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s behest, agreed to allow a Native American lacrosse team to travel to England for a world championship competition under passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy.
Clinton determined that the Iroquois team members did not need U.S. passports to make the trip and granted the players a “one-time-only waiver” to travel on their Iroquois Confederation passports, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. The team members regard U.S. government-issued documents as an attack on their identity.
Asked why the department had dropped its opposition, he said, “There was flexibility there to grant this kind of one-time waiver given the unique circumstances of this particular trip.”
The team still needs British visas to attend the Lacrosse World Championship in Manchester, England. The British government said previously it wouldn’t give the players visas if they could not guarantee they’d be allowed to go home.
Tags: buffalo post, Delta airlines, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Hillary Clinton, Iroquois Conferacy, Iroquois Nationals, Native American news, Rep. Louise Slaughter, tribal sovereignty, U.S. State Department, World Lacrosse Championships