A long throw of the dice

From an article in The New Mexican:

While other tribes are building resorts, golf courses and casinos on their land, Jemez Pueblo has only two economic developments in this isolated community: the Walatowa convenience store and a visitors’ center.

So the tribe is looking 300 miles south — to Anthony, N.M. — to build a casino.

The pueblo and Santa Fe art dealer Gerald Peters have an option to buy a privately owned parcel of land at a busy location next to Interstate 10 between Las Cruces and El Paso.

The pueblo is seeking to put 78 acres of the property into federal trust. In 2004, it submitted a trust application to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs regional office in Albuquerque. If approved, the land would become part of the Jemez reservation.

…

McCain’s bill would prohibit tribes from acquiring land in another state for gambling operations, according to the Times Union newspaper in Albany, N.Y. Although Jemez’s proposal doesn’t involve land in another state, other members of Congress want to add a measure requiring a tribe have an ancestral connection to land before it is put into trust.