Status: December 18, 2020 3:00 am

The American media speak of a “historic turning point”: future President Biden nominated an American Indian woman for a ministerial post for the first time. MP Haaland will become Minister of the Interior.

For the first time in the history of the United States, the president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, appointed an American Indian woman to the cabinet. Biden nominated Congresswoman Deb Haaland, 60, from the state of New Mexico, as Secretary of the Interior.

If Haaland, who belongs to the Pueblo of Laguna tribe, was confirmed by the Senate, the United States would have a Native American as minister for the first time. In the US, the Department of the Interior is primarily responsible for the administration of federally owned lands.

The ministry decides, for example, whether natural reserves are designated or whether power generation such as fracking is allowed. The area of ​​responsibility also includes matters related to the approximately 1.9 million indigenous people. Internal security, which in Europe is the responsibility of the Home Office, is the responsibility of the Department of Home Security in the United States.

“A historical turning point”

The Washington Post wrote of Biden’s landmark decision “that marked a turning point in the relationship of the United States government with the nation’s indigenous peoples.”

Haaland was one of the first two Indigenous women in the United States Congress in 2018. There she sits on the Committee on Natural Resources, which oversees the Home Office. Democrat Biden promised to establish a cabinet with ministers from diverse backgrounds.


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