President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced his support for a new team – and flag – competing in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Delivering remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Summit in Washington, Biden said his administration would back a request from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, previously known as the Iroquois Confederacy, to compete internationally under their own flag in lacrosse at the 2028 games.
“Their ancestors invented the game, they perfected it for millennia, their circumstances are unique, and they should be granted an exception to field their own team at the Olympics,” the president said. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy spans parts of the Northeastern United States and Canada.
The decision began to come together this July, when Haudenosaunee leaders met with White House officials from the National Security Council, Domestic Policy Council and Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. The International Olympic Committee will have to approve the move. CNN has reached out to the IOC for comment.
Biden also outlined steps his administration had taken to strengthen tribal sovereignty before signing a new executive order aimed at streamlining Tribal access to federal funding.
In a speech delivered from the Department of Interior, Biden touted “record investments to tribal nations,” but still acknowledged there is “more to do” to ensure “a new and better chapter in American history for Indian nations.”
“Today, there’s still too many hoops to jump through, too many strings attached and too many inefficiencies in the process,” Biden said.
According to a fact sheet shared with CNN ahead of Wednesday’s summit, the executive order – the third signed by Biden aimed at strengthening bonds with Tribal nations – will direct all federal agencies to move funding programs to more closely fall in line with…
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