WASHINGTON - Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has made an effort to let tribes know that their consultation is wanted.

At the winter session of the National Congress of American Indians in early March, the secretary released a draft consultation policy and solicited input from NCAI and tribes, especially those hit by natural disasters and located along the borders.

“For tribes that are on the borders of Mexico and Canada, we need to work together in a special way because we have tribes and families on both sides of the borders,” Napolitano said in a speech. “As we tighten up requirements to show lawful presence and immigration status and the like, we need to take into account how tribes will be a little bit different. We need to build that into the consultation policy from the outset.”

Previous Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff raised ire from tribes last spring when he waived the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and other federal laws to speed construction of a border fence between the U.S. and Mexico.

“I understood that waiving the laws would generate some controversy,” Chertoff told Indian Country Today in a July interview.