Abstract

Excerpted From: Leo K. Killsback, Tribal Banishment and Disenrollment in Arizona’s Indian Country: Expelled from Their Tribal Nations, 62 Arizona Attorney 36 (July/August 2026) (34 Footnotes) (Full Document)

Can a tribe banish or disenroll its members as punishment for committing crimes? The short answer is yes.

Tribal nations historically employed banishment as a humane alternative to the death penalty. Today, these sanctions can evoke strong emotions because exclusion and revocation of rights are often perceived as slippery slope punishments that can lead to arbitrary enforcement. Nonetheless, each of the 22 tribes of Arizona has rules to define who belongs and who does not. Authority to exclude predates modern tribal law and is protected by inherent sovereignty and a nation’s right to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community.

Tribes regulate membership through their constitutions and enrollment ordinances, and exercise exclusionary authority over members and nonmembers within reservation boundaries through civil and criminal codes. Some tribes distinguish the “exclusion” of non-members from the “banishment” of members, but the terms are interchangeable. Tribes retain banishment and disenrollment powers even in the absence of codified procedures.

Few tribes, however, impose banishment and disenrollment as criminal sanctions.

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Tribal nations are often burdened with difficult decisions when addressing crime in their communities, and they retain the right to enforce banishment and disenrollment as punishments for heinous crimes.

While they may seem to be favorable punishments, neither has been conclusively proven to be the most effective deterrent. Nonetheless, the loss of tribal membership or rights is a symbolic “death penalty” for Indian people. This is why such actions must be carefully and cautiously approached.

LEO K. KILLSBACK authored this article as a Tribal Liaison and Tribal Court Advocate for Southern Arizona Legal Aid (SALA) of Tucson, where he connected with 11 tribal nations of southern Arizona to help expand access to civil legal assistance in tribal courts. Killsback thanks Anthony Young, Sarah Youngblood and the SALA Native American Practice Group for their support. Killsback was also a Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona College of Law, where he teaches Native American Natural Resource Law.