Disagreement over the implications of Public Law 280 on the Soboba Indian Reservation can be solved easily, a UCLA law professor told a gathering of tribes at the Soboba Country Club clubhouse last week.

Retrocession is the answer, Carole Goldberg told the audience, an end to Public Law 280, which she and other speakers said has not only provided little protection for reservations in the Western states in which it applies, but has been the vehicle for police abuse of power.

The law was designed to clarify the relationship between the reservations, which are sovereign nations under several U.S. court decisions, and local law enforcement - and more.

At bottom, the intent of Public Law 280 was to dismantle the reservation system, Goldberg said, and allow the federal government to wash its hands of its treaty obligations.

Robert Salgado, tribal chairman on the Soboba Reservation just outside San Jacinto, told the gathering, “It is time we put it on the table as tribal leaders. We respect the law. We don't think we are above the law, but we also have rights in Indian Country. The outside world doesn't seem to understand the rights we have.”

On reservations not falling under the jurisdiction of Public Law 280, there are two levels of law enforcement, neither involving local or county agencies, Goldberg said.

Instead, tribal police officers are federal deputies who handle misdemeanors while federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, conduct investigations of major crimes.

On the Soboba Reservation, local agencies have responsibility for law enforcement.

That has generated controversy in recent months, particularly when three members of the tribe were killed in gunbattles with Riverside County deputy sheriffs. The deputies were fired on when they responded to calls on the reservation.

Soboba does not have a tribal police force, but it has an unarmed security force, which has set up a checkpoint on the road leading into the reservation's residential area. Deputies have been asked to stop at the checkpoint, give their business, show identification, and even accept tribal security escort to their destinations.

The exceptions to the requirements, Salgado has said, are a hot pursuit that enters the reservation, law enforcement issues in the reservation casino and its environs, and emergency calls.

Sheriff Stan Sniff, who declined to attend the Public Law 280 forum, said anyone impeding deputies attempting to conduct law enforcement business on the reservation could be arrested.

During an earlier meeting following the signing of an agreement between the tribe and the Sheriff's Department pledging continued efforts to keep discussion going of the issues that separate them, Salgado said it is his belief that the Sheriff's Department's authority ends at the tribal boundaries, except in emergencies.

Goldberg, who said she works with the UCLA Native Nations Law and Policy Center, said Public Law 280 not only failed to solve problems facing Indians, but added to them by failing to draw clear lines of authority.

“Public Law 280 did nothing to limit the authority of the tribes to carry out the law enforcement job.

There have been places in which the conflicts have produced ludicrous results, she said, including in the area of the Cabazon Reservation in Palm Springs.

Because of a deal made with railroads a century ago, Indian and non-Indian land is chopped up into a checkerboard of even-sized squares that leaves residents and visitors constantly crossing back and forth over borders between reservation land and land outside it.

As a result, there is a large casino in the middle of Palm Springs hemmed in by nonreservation parcels on which gambling is illegal.