Tribe accused in immigration scam claims sovereignity

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By ROXANA HEGEMAN/Associated Press
Monday, September 17, 2007 9:18 PM PDT

WICHITA, Kan. - The leader of an unrecognized American Indian tribe told authorities they had no right to be ‘‘on sovereign land'' when they came to arrest him on charges stemming from the sale of tribal memberships to illegal immigrants, according to court documents.

The Kaweah Indian Nation had at least one armed tribal police officer at one of its Wichita offices, the court documents say, and authorities who raided the group's offices seized four loaded firearms and boxes of ammunition.

Prosecutors also contend in court filings that the presence of weapons and the officer was consistent with Malcolm L. Webber's long-standing pattern of asserting civil authority over his organization with shows of force that began in the 1980s in Oatman, Ariz., and continues until today.

According to the court filing, Webber, also known as Grand Chief Thunderbird IV, at one time threatened the Mohave County Sheriff's Department in Arizona, stating, ‘‘It will make Wounded Knee look like a Sunday School picnic.''

The arguments came as the government sought Monday to keep Webber incarcerated until his trial on charges of attempting to defraud the federal government, harboring illegal immigrants and possession of false identification documents with intent to defraud the United States.

In an unusually passionate court filing, prosecutors pointed to Webber's prior felony conviction for lewd and lascivious behavior: ‘‘The defendant's prior conviction, while 20 years old, also reflects poorly on his character, and further raises questions about whether any promises he may make to the Court are worth the carbon dioxide the defendant exhales to utter them.''

Prosecutors contend Webber and his agents, in an elaborate nationwide scheme spanning several states, sold tribal memberships in the Kaweah Indian Nation to immigrants under the guise that the memberships would make them U.S. citizens.

Neither Webber nor tribe spokesman Manuel Urbina have discussed the case since the charges were filed Sept. 7. However, in an interview the week before the raid, Urbina denied that the tribe told illegal immigrants that membership would protect them from being deported.

The federal government does not recognize the Kaweah Indian Nation as an American Indian tribe. The tribal memberships did not make the buyers U.S. citizens, which would allow them to get driver's licenses, Social Security cards and other documents.