PHOENIX – President Joe Biden is reportedly expected to formally apologize for the nation’s role in the Indian boarding school system when he visits Arizona on Friday.
Biden is scheduled to arrive in Arizona on Thursday and appear at what was called an “official event” by the White House, which hasn’t released further details about the president’s trip.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that Biden will issue the historic apology on Friday.
No president has ever formally apologized for the forced removal of Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children — an element of genocide as defined by the United Nations — or any other aspect of the U.S. government’s decimation of Indigenous peoples.
What did Indian boarding school investigation find?
Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to lead the Department of the Interior, has made investigating the Indian boarding school system a priority.
The final volume of findings from an investigation she ordered in 2021 released in July. The report says that at least 18,000 children, some as young as 4, were taken from their parents and forced to attend schools that sought to assimilate them. In addition, nearly 1,000 deaths and 74 gravesites associated with the more than 500 schools were documented.
Haaland, whose grandparents were forced to attend a boarding school, said she was honored to play a role, along with her staff, in helping make the apology a reality.
She will join Biden during his first diplomatic visit to a tribal nation as president on Friday as he delivers his speech. “It will be one of the high points of my entire life,” she said.
It’s unclear what, if any, action will follow the apology.
“President Biden’s apology is a profound moment for Native people across this country,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Joe Biden has history of action related to tribes in Arizona
During an August 2023 trip to Arizona, Biden signed a proclamation establishing a national monument on land surrounding the Grand Canyon.
The Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument protects around 1 million acres sacred to native tribes from uranium mining.
Arizona Republican leaders filed a lawsuit earlier this year challenging Biden’s authority to create the monument.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
