A federal judge has effectively restored a family's status as members of the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians in Valley Center, pending the outcome of the family's lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to an order filed Monday in federal court.
About 60 members of the Alto family were expelled in January from the San Pasqual tribe, which owns the Valley View Casino, following a yearslong battle over their true heritage. They lost all tribal membership benefits, including health care and their monthly share of casino benefits, soon after the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk decided that the family did not belong in the tribe based on information submitted under a 2007 complaint.
The family sued the Bureau of Indian affairs in September to have their status as tribal members restored.
In November, lawyers for the family asked the court for a preliminary injunction that would block their removal from the tribe and force the tribe to return some of the benefits they enjoyed as members while the lawsuit was ongoing.
United States District Court Chief Judge Irma E. Gonzalez granted the family's request on Monday, according to court documents.
The Alto family members are descendants of Marcus Alto Sr., who died in 1988, and whose lineage was questioned in a challenge filed by another tribal member, Ron Mast, in August 2007.
Mast said in the challenge that Marcus Alto Sr. was adopted by a San Pasqual family but was not their biological son. Members of the Alto family have said they rightfully belong in the tribe.
On Nov. 26, 2008, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Pacific Regional Director, Dale Morris, sided with the Alto family, saying the evidence did not warrant their ouster. On Jan. 30, 2011, the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Assistant Secretary, Larry Echo Hawk, overturned the regional director's decision.
A "fair interpretation of the most probative, objective and competent evidence available amply supports the (San Pasqual) Enrollment Committee's recommendation to disenroll the Alto descendants," Echo Hawk wrote in his decision.
Gonzalez granted the preliminary injunction Monday in part because the Alto family's attorneys had provided evidence that called into question the validity of Echo Hawk's conclusions about the evidence included in the 2007 complaint.
She wrote that the family's attorneys had provided evidence that "demonstrated sufficient errors and inconsistencies in (Echo) Hawk's determinations that serious questions have been raised as to whether those determinations amount to a ‘clear error of judgment.'"
To officially disenroll the family, the tribe must approve a new tribal membership roll without their names, and submit it to the bureau for final approval, the Altos' said.
As of Monday, such a list had not been presented to the bureau, according to court documents.
Gonzalez stopped the disenrollment process pending the outcome of the lawsuit, which means the Altos' are enrolled members of the tribe until the case is decided, according to the order. As such, Gonzalez said the bureau must uphold its obligations to them as tribal members, including its responsibility "to protect the individual members' interests until this dispute is fully adjudicated."
To that end, Gonzalez ordered the bureau to issue orders that will allow, for the duration of the lawsuit, the Alto family access to the same tribal heath care benefits and voting rights they enjoyed before the bureau's decision in January, and also require the tribe to contribute to escrow trust funds of family members who are minors.
The tribe's chairman, Allen E. Lawson, declined Wednesday to comment on the court's decision because the matter is being handled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
He said the tribe had not received any directives from the bureau.
Call staff writer Morgan Cook at 760-739-6675.