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Federal Government returns confiscated eagle feathers to tribal leader, but still enforces arbitrary law

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Ryan Colby 202-349-7219 media@becketlaw.org

Native News Online, March 10, 2015

Although just moments ago Mr. Robert Soto, a Lipan Apache religious leader and renowned feather dancer, received the tribe’s sacred feathers, the federal government has not repealed an arbitrary federal law forbidding Mr. Soto and others like him from possessing eagle feathers, and it is still threatening Mr. Soto with punishment for practicing his faith. The Becket Fund continues to defend Mr. Soto in court, and today it will be filing a motion to obtain protection from this unjust law.

“The government has about a million better things to do with taxpayer money than send undercover agents to raid Native American powwows and confiscate their eagle feathers,” said Luke Goodrich, Deputy General Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.