A decades-old fight between two federally recognized Cherokee tribes in northeastern Oklahoma flared up again this year after federal officials in Washington reversed themselves on a question that has never been fully settled: does the United Keetoowah Band share equal jurisdiction over the Cherokee Nation's 7,000-square-mile reservation, or is the Cherokee Nation the sole successor to that land? The latest answer, delivered in May, went against the smaller tribe, leaving it without the casino land it has chased for years.
The dispute, detailed in a report from KOSU, traces back to a January 2025 decision by then-Interior official Robert Anderson, who issued a 56-page opinion in Washington, D.C. declaring that the United Keetoowah Band, or UKB, was a joint successor to the reservation along with the Cherokee Nation. Anderson argued that both tribes are successors in interest to 19th-century treaties and that the tribes jointly succeed to reservation rights, including the right to have land taken into trust. He also said, per the outlet's report, that the two tribes should work out a resolution between themselves rather than rely on federal fiat.
That opinion did not survive long. The Trump administration suspended Anderson's decision in April 2025 and rescinded it outright the following month, according to KOSU's reporting. Then, on May 22, 2026, Interior Solicitor William L. Doffermyre went further, issuing Solicitor's Opinion M-37089 to permanently withdraw the Biden-era ruling, determining that the Cherokee Nation reservation cannot be considered the UKB's reservation under federal land acquisition rules, as reported by Casino.org.
Two Tribes, One Hometown, Decades of Friction
Both tribes are headquartered in Tahlequah and descend from Cherokee people relocated from the southeastern United States, per KOSU's account. The Cherokee Nation has more than 470,000 enrolled members and has no blood quantum requirement, while the UKB has more than 14,000 members and requires at least one-quarter degree of Cherokee ancestry for enrollment; UKB members cannot enroll in other tribes. Congress recognized the UKB in 1946, but the Cherokee Nation is considered the successor to the reservation in the eyes of the U.S. government, and it denies the UKB's claim to equal jurisdiction.
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. has framed the UKB as a separate government created in the mid-20th century, telling KOSU that the Cherokee Nation is the signatory to every treaty with the United States and Cherokee people. The Cherokee Nation maintains that its 1976 constitution replaced an 1839 constitution and that it dropped the words “of Oklahoma” from its own constitution in 1999. Importantly, per the same outlet's report, the Cherokee Nation does not seek to eliminate the UKB or deny its federal recognition — its objection is narrower, centered on jurisdiction and trust land.
A Casino Dream Deferred, Again
The jurisdictional fight has real financial stakes for the UKB. The tribe opened a bingo hall in Tahlequah in 1986 that developed into a full casino venture over 27 years, but that casino shut down in August 2013. The UKB asked the federal government in 2012 to place 2.03 acres into trust, and the Cherokee Nation subsequently sued over the UKB's casino operation, according to the Cherokee Phoenix as cited in KOSU's report. The Cherokee Nation argues that the UKB requires its permission before receiving reservation trust land.
Then-Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt entered into gaming compacts with four tribal nations, including the UKB, in 2020, but the Oklahoma Supreme Court invalidated the UKB compact in 2021, and state legislators rejected the compact again in 2023. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond added another obstacle in June 2025, issuing a legal opinion that declared a proposed model gaming compact between the state and the UKB invalid because statewide authorization to form new compacts without legislative committee approval had expired back in 2020, according to Tribal Business News. UKB leadership has claimed that Cherokee Nation political influence drove that decision, the outlet reported.
The UKB did clear one federal hurdle along the way: the National Indian Gaming Commission approved the tribe's updated tribal gaming code on March 3, 2025, replacing its 1994 code, according to ICT. Cherokee Nation officials maintained that approval was invalid on Cherokee reservation territory. The tribe currently has around 76 acres devoted to its tribal headquarters, and multiple trust-land applications pending with the Department of the Interior would increase UKB trust land from 76 to 188 acres and would allow trust land for gaming, per KOSU's reporting. The setbacks have had a direct financial cost: the UKB furloughed 32 employees in July after depleting American Rescue Plan Act funds that were issued during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, KOSU reported.
Policing Disputes Spill Into the Courts
The jurisdictional gridlock extends well beyond casino revenue into everyday law enforcement. An Oklahoma district court judge dismissed drunk-driving charges in October 2024 after defense attorneys argued that a UKB Lighthorse Police officer had no jurisdictional authority when he pulled over an alleged drunk driver on the reservation in January 2024, according to KGOU's reporting cited by KOSU. The UKB maintains that its Lighthorse Police Department is recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and certified by the Oklahoma Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training.
That dismissal prompted a sharp response from local law enforcement. Thirty-two agencies — a coalition that, per ICT's reporting, included 13 county sheriffs, 18 municipal police chiefs, and the Cherokee Nation Marshal Service — endorsed a letter in December 2024 condemning the UKB over the case's dismissal and warning that Lighthorse patrols across the reservation posed a public safety threat given the lack of clear jurisdictional authority. The friction has also complicated emergency response: interagency confusion between UKB Lighthorse Police, Cherokee Marshals, and local sheriff's departments caused operational delays during missing-person investigations in 2024, including the search for 19-year-old UKB member Trey Glass, according to ICT.
A Legal Precedent That Cuts Both Ways
Federal courts have not been consistent arbiters either. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that the Department of the Interior had authority under Section 3 of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 to take land into trust for the UKB without obtaining consent from the Cherokee Nation, reversing a lower district court decision that had favored the Cherokee Nation, according to court records. That followed an earlier 2009 ruling in which the 10th Circuit sided with the UKB after HUD reduced the tribe's Indian Housing Block Grant allocations following jurisdictional objections raised by the Cherokee Nation, with the court finding that HUD had failed to follow statutory formula requirements, per McAfee & Taft.
The stakes of Oklahoma's tribal gaming industry help explain why the fight over reservation status has become so contentious. In fiscal year 2024, thirty-three gaming tribes in Oklahoma operated 137 facilities generating $3.47 billion in Class III gaming revenue and paid $210.2 million in exclusivity fees to the state, according to the Oklahoma Policy Institute, with those fees funding public education and mental health programs statewide. For now, the UKB remains locked out of that revenue stream, and the underlying question of whether it holds equal claim to the reservation its headquarters shares with the Cherokee Nation remains unresolved between federal agencies, state officials, and the two tribes themselves.
