Village of Wainwright tribal members will soon be able to get travel documents without leaving town.
The village will be the second Alaska tribe to offer Enhanced Tribal Cards — a document equivalent to a U.S. Passport Card and valid for domestic travel, as well international travel by land or sea between the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda.
“This will allow our members to obtain these cards to be used in place of a passport when traveling out of the country,” said Raymond Nashookpuk, Indian General Assistance Program coordinator with the village and former city mayor. “It’s going to be really, really beneficial to our people because ... you have to travel out of town to go get an actual passport or ID because we’re in a remote village.”
The ETC Program started in 2010 when the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in Arizona — and their enterprise Sacred Path — entered into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security and Customs Border Protection to implement cards for their tribal members. In 2011, the ETC was approved as a Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative-compliant document for border crossing, denoting identity, U.S. citizenship, and tribal membership status.
The benefits of the card are that the issuing authority is the Tribal Nation, not another entity like the Department of State or the Department of Motor Vehicle, said Marisela C Nunez, Sacred Path program director who leads the Tribes ETC Program.
“Tribal Nations are able to negotiate the documents they will accept from their enrolled members to qualify for the ETC Card,” Nunez said. “The ETC Card can be issued the same day versus having to wait in the mail or return to the issuing authority to pick up your travel documents weeks later.”
Sacred Path has assisted 12 federally recognized tribes along with their own in-house program implementation, Nunez said. That included an Alaska tribe, Hydaburg Cooperative Association located on Prince Wales Island. Since 2013, the members of the Alaska tribe of about 500 have been using the cards that made it easier for them to travel to bordering Canada, according to the testimony, posted on the Sacred Path website.
The Village of Wainwright, with about 887 tribal members, will be the latest participant in the program. The tribal council approved its enrollment last month, Nashookpuk said.
Village of Wainwright is the 2nd Tribe within Alaska to start offering Enhanced Tribal Cards. This will allow our...
Posted by Village of Wainwright on Friday, September 29, 2023
While Wainwright tribal members have tribal ID cards that allow them to travel across the state, they still need to go out of town to receive their passports to travel outside of the country — until they start using ETCs, Nashookpuk said.
The tribe will meet with Homeland Security and the Sacred Path this month to ensure funding for the new card-making equipment to get the program running, he said.
“We’re in the process of still getting it done — we don’t have the cards yet,” he said. “I’m hoping we can get it by the end of the year.”