This story was originally published by The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice. Sign up for The Imprint’s free newsletters here.
In a still publicly unexplained move, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has taken over control of the Red Lake Nation’s child and family services, just days after the FBI executed a search warrant on the reservation.
Since then, the BIA has “reassumed immediate operations” in order “to ensure the safety and well-being of children and families,” the agency stated. It further noted that bureau staff are in place “to immediately support the transition and ensure continuity of services. Our team is working to provide stability for children and families while maintaining the essential services and protections they rely on.”
In an email sent to The Imprint, a spokesperson for the BIA clarified that its takeover from tribal authorities is legal under the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which allows for “federally initiated action of reassuming control of federal programs” previously performed by a tribe.
The BIA has strict guidelines governing such actions. According to the act’s statutes, the federal government can take over from a tribal organization if failures create the risk of harm to individuals, financial mismanagement or negligent use of trust funds or land.
Scrutiny of the tribal agency — called Ombimindwaa Gidinawemaaganinaadog, which means “Uplifting our Relatives” in Ojibwe — first came to light last Thursday, when the FBI and BIA searched its headquarters, which houses its child and adult protective services and mental healthcare. A search warrant doesn’t necessarily indicate that a crime was committed, and authorities say there have been no related arrests.
The Red Lake Nation Tribal Council has offered few other details about the search of the building formerly called Red Lake Family and Children’s Services. It’s located on the nation’s reservation in northern Minnesota, which is home to more than 10,000 tribal members.
In the past, the BIA has seized control of tribal police departments. Examples since 2000 include federal oversight of policing on Fallon Paiute-Shoshone, Blackfeet and Cheyenne-Arapaho lands.
According to reporting by ICT and other outlets, the BIA took over child protection services from the Spirit Lake Nation in northeast North Dakota in 2012, amid allegations of severe child abuse and rape. At the time, the federal government cited the small tribe’s insufficient ability to properly investigate the cases, screen foster parents and prosecute offenders. As a result, the BIA increased staff, hired additional child welfare specialists and social service workers. Within the tribal community however, the takeover was viewed more skeptically, the news outlet reported.
Red Lake Nation took jurisdiction over its tribal child welfare cases in 2021 and now retains oversight of its families’ data, which means that aside from summaries, it does not share detailed numbers on abuse and neglect cases outside of the tribe.
Cooperation with the feds is hinted at — but not detailed — in the Red Lake Nation’s seven-page 2026 tribal child welfare report to the state Legislature, which states: “Occasionally, the FBI is involved in bringing federal child welfare charges against Red Lake citizens.”
The report describes progress on its goal of “100% family preservation and intergenerational family wellness.” It notes a sharp drop in the number of child maltreatment reports between 2023 and 2024, from 641 to 313 children. In 2024, the number of “new, substantiated child victims” also declined by 51% compared to 2021.
In previous, more lengthy reports to the Legislature, the nation has stated it does not terminate parental rights in child welfare cases and “does not participate in adoptions.”
“Our agency is focused on decolonizing from a county way of practice,” Red Lake Nation’s report stated. “This has meant training and retraining staff to think in decolonized ways using customs and traditions that have been passed on through many generations to ‘uplift relatives’ without judgment, fear of punishment and loss of their children.”
Tribal child welfare workers consider culture as “the cure” for many of Indigenous families’ social ills. As a result, families in the Red Lake Nation’s child welfare system are guided through seasonal ceremonies, and connected with spiritual leaders and Ojibwe language speakers, the tribe reported to Minnesota lawmakers.
Cheri Goodwin, executive director of the Ombimindwaa Gidinawemaagan tribal social services agency, did not respond to The Imprint’s requests for comment on the FBI and BIA investigation. The tribe’s media contact for the investigation, Holly Cook Macarro, also did not respond to multiple requests.
But on Sunday, the Red Lake Nation’s Tribal Chairman Darrell Seki Sr. spoke to the controversy.
“The safety and well-being of Red Lake’s children and families has always been, and will always remain, the Nation’s highest priority,” he said.
If you have information related to the search of the Red Lake Nation’s children and family services building, please contact Nancy Marie Spears anonymously through Signal at 405-822-1267 or by email at nspears@imprintnews.org.
